THE  LIBRARY 

OF 
THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


Uf , 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   AND    PEDAGOGY 
OF   READING 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO 
DALLAS  •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTU 

TORONTO 


THE 

PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PEDAGOGY 
OF  READING 


WITH    A    REVIEW    OF    THE    HISTORY    OF 

READING     AND     WRITING     AND     OF 

METHODS,  TEXTS,  AND  HYGIENE 

IN   READING 


BY 

EDMUND   BURKE   HUEY,  A.M.,  PH.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PSYCHOLOGY   AND   EDUCATION   IN  THE 
WESTERN   UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


Nefo  fforfc 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1920 

All  righfs  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1908, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electiotyped.      Published  January,  1908. 


XortaooS 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <k  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Education 
Library 

LB 


MY  FELLOWS   IN    RESEARCH 

WHOSE  INVESTIGATIONS  OF  READING  AND  LANGUAGE 
ARE  HERE  JOINED  WITH   MY  OWN 

THIS  VOLUME 

IS  PRESENTED  BY  THE  AUTHOR  IN  THE  HOPE  THAT 

IT  MAY   RENDER   SERVICE,   AND   WITH 

RESPECTFUL   APPRECIATION    OF 

THEIR   PART   IN   ITS 

PRODUCTION 


1288834 


PREFACE 

THE  writer's  studies  upon  reading  began  nearly  ten 
years  ago,  being  first  suggested  by  a  question  concerning 
the  possibility  of  reading  without  inner  pronunciation, 
raised  by  my  friend  and  fellow-worker  in  the  laboratory, 
now  Professor  G.  M.  Whipple  of  the  University  of  Mis- 
souri. The  reading  process  had  long  seemed  to  me  to 
mirror  the  processes  of  thinking,  and  thus  came  to  seem 
an  appropriate  subject  for  psychological  analysis.  Be- 
sides, the  peculiar  fatigue  occasioned  by  reading  caused 
a  curiosity  to  know  its  sources,  and  the  great  variations 
and  limitations  in  speed  of  reading  suggested  possibilities 
of  improvement  here. 

Such  considerations  gave  birth  to  my  experimental  re- 
search. The  field  seemed  clear.  Diligent  search  in  the 
literature  showed  only  the  preliminary  experiments  of 
Javal  and  his  pupils,  and  'those  by  Romanes  and  by 
Quantz,  upon  reading  properly  so  called.  Erdmann  and 
Dodge  were  then  completing  their  research,  but  I  did  not 
hear  of  their  work  until  a  year  later.  Reading  thus  offered 
to  the  experimentalist  a  practically  unoccupied  field. 

Ten  years  has  given  a  development  here  of  which  experi- 
mental psychology  may  be  proud.  Dodge,  Zeitler,  Mess- 

vii 


VU1  PREFACE 

mer,  Dearborn,  and  others  have  thoroughly  investigated 
important  phases  of  reading,  and  the  collected  studies  now 
present  a  very  tolerable  account  of  the  main  processes  in- 
volved. It  has  therefore  seemed  to  me  that  a  conspectus 
should  be  made  of  this  work,  not  to  close  the  story  but  to 
furnish  a  new  point  of  departure  for  further  study,  and  tc 
give  perspective  for  new  researches. 

Then  it  is  due  to  education  that  from  time  to  time  the 
psychological  investigations  that  have  pedagogical  bear- 
ings be  edited,  for  such  applications  as  education  can 
helpfully  make  of  them.  And  while  engaged  in  this  latter 
task,  for  reading,  and  falling  in  with  much  of  the  peda- 
gogical literature  of  the  subject,  it  became  ever  more  evi- 
dent that  there  was  great  need  of  bringing  together  the 
data  not  merely  from  the  psychology  of  reading,  but  from 
the  history  of  reading  and  of  reading  methods,  from  the 
current  practice  and  points  of  view  in  the  subject,  and 
from  the  side  of  hygiene,  drawing  finally  such  conclu- 
sions as  these  collected  data  might  warrant  for  the 
guidance  of  present  and  future  practice  in  reading  and 
learning  to  read. 

So  the  present  volume  has  taken  form,  typical  of  books 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  written  for  each  of  the 
more  important  school  subjects,  however  poorly  this 
volume  may  exemplify  the  type.  Consider  the  need  of 
this  in  the  various  subjects.  Not  to  mention  writing,  a 
branch  in  which  there  is  perhaps  the  most  of  needless  con- 


PREFACE  IS 

fusion  and  in  which  perhaps  the  greatest  benefit  would  be 
derived  from  such  a  concentration  of  data,  and  num- 
ber, in  which  certain  phases  have  already  been  well  pre- 
sented, Consider,  for  example,  the  value  of  such  a  treat- 
ment of  geography.  The  psychological  section  would  be 
mainly  an  outline  of  researches  to  be,  but  it  would  be  of 
the  greatest  value  to  have  these  suggested,  with  our 
graduate  departments  full  cf  men  looking  for  problems. 
The  school  subjects,  ordinarily,  involve  some  characteristic 
modes  of  mental  and  physiological  functioning  which  fur- 
nish to  psychology  problems  fruitful  for  psychology's  own 
purposes.  But  pedagogically,  what  sort  of  symbols,  for 
instance,  are  most  effective  instruments  for  thinking  the 
earth,  its  divisions  and  dependencies  ?  Are  actual  experi- 
ences, the  very  appearances  of  mountains  and  cities  seen 
in  reality  or  constructed  in  miniature^  the  best  geographical 
furniture  for  life's  uses  ?  Or  do  symbols  utterly  unlike  the 
realities,  marks  and  colors  upon  maps  and  charts  and 
globes,  give  us  the  most  compact  and  convenient  scheme 
for  mind's  dealing  with  the  earth's  forms  ?  Or  are  words, 
though  totally  unlike  their  objects,  the  best  manipulators 
of  meanings  here,  as  they  certainly  are  in  some  divisions  of 
thinking?  And  what  is  the  order  in  the  development  of 
capacity  and  interest,  in  the  child  and  the  race,  for  the 
various  modes  of  symbolic  presentation  here,  and  for  the 
various  phases  of  geographical  knowledge  ? 

Such  problems,  but  the  first  of  a  host  that  will  suggest 


X  PREFACE 

themselves  to  any  competent  investigator,  are  capable 
of  at  least  partial  solution  from  the  data  even  now  ac- 
cessible, if  these  be  gathered  from  the  various  sources. 
And  then,  as  every  one  knows,  the  history  of  geography 
and  of  geography  teaching  is  full  of  valuable  sugges- 
tion; and  when  presented  with  a  review  of  present-day 
theory  and  practice  and  with  the  psychological  data  upon 
the  subject,  the  whole  cannot  fail  to  give  us  a  far  better 
orientation  and  the  possibility  of  distinct  advance  in  this 
much-abused  branch  of  study.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  various  departments  of  educational  psychology,  now 
becoming  popular  in  our  universities,  will  recognize  the 
great  service  which  they  can  render,  botji  to  psychology 
and  education,  by  such  organization  and  concentration 
of  data  concerning  the  various  school  subjects. 

Of  course  no  two  authors  would  select  the  same  mate- 
rial for  such  a  work  upon  reading.  I  have  endeavored 
to  present  the  most  meaningful  facts,  and  those  researches 
in  which  more  or  less  definite  results  have  been  reached. 
Completeness  of  treatment  and  of  reference  is  out  of  the 
question  in  a  subject  having  such  various  and  intricate 
ramifications. 

Some  of  the  pedagogical  principles  suggested  by  the 
psychological  work  are  still  in  the  "  recept "  stage.  In 
working  over  the  material  one  comes  to  feel  their  truth 
and  their  applicability,  but  to  attempt  their  logical  state- 
ment or  derivation  would  in  many  cases  be  premature 


PREFACE  XI 

and  would  tend  to  arouse  useless  polemics.  Teachers 
will  usually  be  better  satisfied  to  find  them  well  founded 
empirically,  and  psychological  values  have  guided  me,  at 
least  implicitly,  in  their  selection  and  use. 

In  the  work  of  collating  and  editing  the  data  presented 
in  the  present  volume,  I  have  been  greatly  aided  by  the 
large  number  of  writers  and  publishers  who  have  cour- 
teously permitted  me  to  publish  so  many  extracts  and 
illustrations  from  their  works.  To  them  is  justly  due  a 
considerable  share  of  the  credit  for  whatever  success  the 
book  may  have.  Professor  Reeder  deserves  the  main 
credit  for  gathering  material  and  suggesting  sources  for 
my  section  on  the  history  of  reading  methods  and  texts. 
The  excellent  volumes  by  Isaac  Taylor,  Hoffman,  and 
Clodd  were  indispensable  in  preparing  my  sketch  of  the 
history  of  reading  and  writing.  My  thanks  are  especially 
due  to  Messrs.  D.  Appleton  and  Co.,  and  to  Kegan  Paul, 
Trench,  Triibner,  and  Co.,  for  permission  to  use  so  many 
of  their  valuable  illustrations.  The  American  Book  Co., 
the  Funk  and  Wagnalls  Co.,  and  the  Macmillan  Co.  have 
also  been  especially  indulgent.  It  will  be  noted  that  one 
of  the  chapters  on  the  Hygiene  of  Reading  has  already 
appeared  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly. 

I  wish  to  thank  Professors  E.  C.  Sanford,  W.  H.  Burn- 
ham,  W.  F.  Dearborn,  and  Henry  D.  Sheldon  for  sug- 
gestions from  the  reading  of  parts  of  the  Ms.,  and 
Mr.  Louis  N.  Wilson  for  efficient  and  kindly  assistance 


rii  PREFACE 

in  the  library  and  otherwise.  I  am  also  indebted  to  the 
genius  of  President  Hall  for  much  more  than  text  or 
bibliography  can  well  indicate. 

Professor  and  Mrs.  Will  Grant  Chambers  have  given 
valuable  criticisms  and  suggestions  from  a  reading  of  the 
proofs,  and  the  book  owes  much  to  their  unfailing  en- 
couragement and  assistance.  Mr.  E.  H.  McClelland  and 
Mrs.  H.  H.  Fisher  have  kindly  assisted  with  the  revision 
of  the  proofs,  and  Miss  Grace  Kerr  deserves  special  men- 
tion for  patient  care  in  typewriting  most  of  the  illegible 
Ms.  To  these  and  the  other  friends  who  have  lightened 
the  labor  of  the  book's  production,  I  express  my  grateful 
appreciation.  In  conclusion,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  acknowl- 
edge the  intelligence  and  cheerful  courtesy  of  the  Mac- 
millan  Co.  and  of  the  J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  in  carrying  out 

the  plans  of  the  author. 

E.  B.  H. 

PlTTSBURG,  PA., 

CHRISTMAS,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTORY 
CHAPTER  I 

MOB 

THE  MYSTERIES  AND  PROBLEMS  OF  READING     •       •       •       I 

PART   I 
THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 


.      15 

CHAPTER   III 

THE  EXTENT  OF  READING  MATTER  PERCEIVED  DURING  A 
READING  PAUSE 51 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDIES  UPON  VISUAL  PERCEPTION  IN 
READING 71 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  NATURE  OF  THE  PERCEPTUAL  PROCESS  IN  READING  .    102 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE  INNER  SPEECH  OF  READING  AND  THE  MENTAL  AND 

PHYSICAL"  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  SPEECH       .       .        .117 
xiii 


XIV  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII 

PACK 

THE  FUNCTIONING  OF  INNER  SPEECH  IN  THE  PERCEPTION 
OF  WHAT  is  READ 142 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  WHAT  is  READ,  AND  THE  NATURE 
OF  MEANING 152 

CHAPTER  IX 
THE  RATE  OF  READING       .......    170 

PART   II 

THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  AND  OF 
^   READING  METHODS 

CHAPTER  X 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  READING,  IN  THE  INTERPRETATION  OF 

GESTURES  AND  PICTURES 187 

CHAPTER  XI 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  AN  ALPHABET  AND  OF  READING  BY 

ALPHABETIC  SYMBOLS 203 

CHAPTER  XII 
THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  PRINTED  PAGE     ....    226 

CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  METHODS  AND  TEXTS      .        .    240 


CONTENTS  XV 

PART   III 
THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

CHAPTER  XIV 

PAGE 

PRESENT-DAY  METHODS  AND  TEXTS  IN  ELEMENTARY  READ- 
ING .        . .       .       .    265 

CHAPTER  XV 

THE  VIEWS  OF  REPRESENTATIVE  EDUCATORS  CONCERNING 
EARLY  READING 301 

CHAPTER  XVI 
LEARNING  TO  READ  AT  HOME 313 

CHAPTER  XVII 
LEARNING  TO  READ  AT  SCHOOL.    THE  EARLY  PERIOD     .    336 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

READING   AS   A   DISCIPLINE,  AND  AS  TRAINING   IN   THE 

EFFECTIVE  USE  OF  BOOKS     ......    359 

CHAPTER   XIX 
WHAT  TO  READ;  THE  READING  OF  ADOLESCENTS     .        .    371 

PART  IV 
THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

CHAPTER  XX 
READING  FATIGUE 387 


XVI  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XXI 

PAGE 

HYGIENIC  REQUIREMENTS  IN  THE  PRINTING  OF  BOOKS  AND 
PAPERS 406 


CONCLUSION 

CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  FUTURE  OF  READING  AND  PRINTING.    THE  ELIMINA- 
TION OF  WASTE 421 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 433 

INDEX 447 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   AND    PEDAGOGY 
OF   READING 


INTRODUCTION 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  MYSTERIES  AND  PROBLEMS  OF  READING 

READING,  for  our  Anglo-Saxon  forefathers,  meant  coun- 
seling or  advising  oneself  or  others  (A.-S.  radan,  to  advise). 
To  read  was  to  get  or  to  give  counsel  from  a  book,  origi- 
nally from  a  piece  of  bark  on  which  characters  were 
inscribed,  at  least  if  the  reputed  connection  of  book  and 
beech  can  be  sustained.  The  accessory  notion  of  talking 
aloud  seems  to  have  been  implied  in  the  word,  as  it  was 
also  in  the  Roman  word  for  reading.  To  the  Roman,  on 
the  other  hand,  reading  meant  gathering  or  choosing  (lectio, 
reading,  from  lego,  to  gather)  from  what  was  written, 
suggesting  that  constant  feeling  of  values  which  goes  on 
in  all  effective  reading. 

But  reading  had  a  meaning  and  was  a  common  prac- 
tice long  before  the  times  of  Anglo-Saxon  or  Roman.  Men 
read  in  North  Babylonia  as  long  before  Abraham's  time  as 
the  latter  precedes  our  own.  In  that  land  reading  and 
writing  had  passed  the  pictograph  stage  eight  thousand 
years  ago.  In  Egypt,  alphabet  signs  were  used  at  least 
seven  thousand  years  ago,  and  we  know  that  with  races  the 
attainment  of  an  alphabet  is  just  the  opposite  of  the  A  B  C 


2  INTRODUCTION 

stage  of  reading  and  writing.  Indeed  it  is  certain  that 
even  in  that  early  period,  in  Egypt,  Babylonia,  and  Crete, 
reading  and  writing  were  already  of  hoary  antiquity,  and 
had  for  these  peoples  already  lost  their  beginnings  in  the 
mist  and  myth  of  a  still  more  distant  past. 

To  the  early  peoples,  reading  was  one  of  the  most 
mysterious  of  the  arts,  both  in  its  performance  and  in  its 
origin.  We  recall  how,  even  in  modern  times,  Living- 
stone excited  the  wonder  and  awe  of  an  African  tribe 
as .  he  daily  perused  a  book  that  had  survived  the 
vicissitudes  of  travel.  So  incomprehensible,  to  these 
savages,  was  his  performance  with  the  book,  that  they 
finally  stole  it  and  ate  it,  as  the  best  way  they  knew  of 
"reading"  it,  of  getting  the  white  man's  satisfacfion  from 
it.  Among  early  peoples  the  mystery  of  reading  naturally 
led  to  reverence  for  the  printed  word  and  book  and  for 
reading  and  the  reader.  Reading  became  a  holy  office, 
performed  by  individuals  who  possessed  divine  powers, 
and  the  book  became  a  fetich.  The  written  word  was 
always  of  mysterious  significance  with  the  savage.  It 
carried  meanings  through  distances  in  space  and  time  in 
such  an  utterly  incomprehensible  and  apparently  lawless 
fashion  that  he  could  not  but  fear  and  venerate  it.  A 
man  might  even  be  destroyed  by  doing  certain  prescribed 
things  to  his  written  name.  The  "winged  words"  of 
spoken  language  traversed  the  air  unseen  and  were 
indeed  objects  of  mystery,  but  they  needed  their  written 


THE    MYSTERIES    AND   PROBLEMS    OF    READING  3 

symbols,  more  tangible  and  thus  better  fetiches,  to 
become  the  objects  of  primitive  worship. 

And  the  man  who  could  deal  in  these  symbols  and  use 
them  for  his  purposes,  he  was  next  to  the  gods  and  might 
rule  in  their  stead.  And  so  reading  was  long  mainly  in 
the  hands  of  the  priesthood,  and  written  language,  bear- 
ing the  records  of  civilization  and  becoming  the  tangible 
subject-matter  of  learning,  ministered  to  forms  of  worship 
and  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Church.  Written  lan- 
guage became  the  currency  of  civilization,  and  so  of  learn- 
ing and  education.  It  was  thought  of  as  value  in  itself, 
and  most  commonly  the  Church  "kept  the  bag."  And 
so  through  this  mystery  of  the  printed  word  and  this 
reverence  for  reading  and  for  the  book  it  came  about  that 
learning  and  education  have  ever  been  more  or  less  holy 
things,  and  that  the  core  of  education,  the  reverenced  part 
of  it,  has  not  been  the  arts,  nor  even  the  sciences  as  first- 
hand studies  of  reality,  but  language  and  books.  People's 
reverence  for  reading  and  writing  helped  to  bring  this 
about  at  first,  and  the  clergy,  always  conservative,  pre- 
served this  ideal  in  the  face  of  a  "better  reason,"  even 
until  now. 

How  dominant  and  ingrained  is  this  ideal  of  education 
is  evident  in  our  names  for,  and  common  expressions  con- 
cerning, learning.  The  learned  man  is  a  "man  of  letters," 
.while  the  ignoramus  is  "unlettered."  To  say  that  one 
"cannot  read  and  write"  is  to  outlaw  him  in  the  common- 


4  INTRODUCTION 

wealth  of  learning,  while  the  acme  of  scholarship,  until 
quite  recently  at  least,  has  been  stated  in  such  terms  as 
"Why,  he  reads  seven  languages,"  "He  reads  Greek  at 
sight,"  "He  is  well  read,"  etc.  "Learning"  is  still  largely 
the  ability  to  read  and  the  reputation  of  having  read,  and 
reading  keeps  the  momentum  of  the  ages  in  which  it  was 
identical  with  learning. 

The  modern  dominance  of  this  ideal  is  not  merely 
because  reading,  especially  reading  of  the  classics,  was  for 
centuries  the  only  road  to  culture  if  not  to  station.  But 
to  this  day  reading  carries  with  it  the  faint  but  instinct- 
starting  aroma  of  its  old  religious  significance.  Book  is 
still  Bible,  perhaps  as  much  as  Bible  is  Book,  to  the 
average  reader.  All  of  us  believe  a  little  more  readily  if 
it  can  be  said  of  the  doctrine,  "It  is  written."  Students 
still  worship  the  "power"  of  reading  the  difficult  lan- 
guages and  the  remote  literatures,  and  theological  educa- 
tion, true  to  its  history,  still  clings  to  reading  and  language 
as  its  main  food.  Little  wonder,  then,  that  Professor 
Dewey  calls  reading  the  Fetich  of  the  Primary  Grades. 
It  is  a  mystery  and  a  fetich  with  us  all,  and  has  not  only 
blinded  us  to  comparative  values  in  the  primary  school 
course,  but  as  subtly  warps  the  judgment  in  a  dozen  other 
important  directions.  The  written  or  printed  "word," 
and  especially,  as  of  old,  if  it  be  written  in  strange  char- 
acters, still  awes  us  and  controls  us  by  its  appeal  to  the 
old  folk-soul,  which  is  the  deepest  soul  in  us  all. 


THE    MYSTERIES    AND   PROBLEMS    OF    READING  5 

Perhaps  there  is  nothing  that  has  been  greatly  venerated 
for  long  periods  that  is  not  really  very  wonderful,  if  one 
considers  the  essence  of  what  is  wondered  at.  And  after 
all  it  does  not  seem  so  absurd  that  reading  and  the  book 
should  have  been  the  worshipful  wonder  of  the  ages,  and' 
that  they  should  still  be  reverenced.  Real  reading  is  still 
the  noblest  of  the  arts,  the  medium  by  which  there  still  come 
to  us  the  loftiest  inspirations,  the  highest  ideals,  the  purest 
feelings  that  have  been  allowed  mankind,  —  a  God-gift 
indeed,  this  written  word  and  the  power  to  interpret  it. 

And  reading  itself,  as  a  psycho-physiological  process,  is 
almost  as  good  as  a  miracle.  To  the  average  reader  the 
process  by  which  he  gets  his  pages  read  is  not  understood 
very  much  better  than  was  the  performance  of  Living- 
stone by  the  savage.  Indeed,  until  twenty-five  years  ago, 
science  could  not  give  a  very  much  better  specific  account. 
The  psychological  part  of  the  present  study  has  grown 
mainly  out  of  my  own  simple  wonder  at  the  process  of 
reading,  and  out  of  my  curiosity  to  know  its  mechanism ; 
and  this  wonder  has  simply  expressed  itself  in  a  different 
procedure  than  that  of  the  African,  has  used  the  better 
tools  of  science  and  of  scientific  cooperation  with  other 
wonderers,  in  the  endeavor  to  solve  this  mystery  of  the 
ages.  Problem  enough,  this,  for  a  life's  work,  to  learn 
how  we  read !  A  wonderful  process,  by  which  our 
thoughts  and  thought-wanderings  to  the  finest  shades  of 
detail,  the  play  of  our  inmost  feelings  and  desires  and 


0  INTRODUCTION 

will,  the  subtle  image  of  the  very  innermost  that  we  are, 
are  reflected  from  us  to  another  soul  who  reads  us  through 
our  book.  And  a  wonderful,  awe-inspiring  instrument, 
this  book,  that  keeps  this  subtle  likeness  of  its  author, 
unfolding  it  part  by  part,  changing  it  in  phase  at  every 
page  or  sentence,  yet  all  faithful  to  the  original  impress. 
Not  in  a  day,  not  in  ten  thousand  years  even,  as  we 
shall  find,  has  man  been  able  to  contrive  the  making  of 
such  a  book  or  the  manner  of  reading  its  pages. 

And  so  to  completely  analyze  what  we  do  when  we  read 
would  almost  be  the  acme  of  a  psychologist's  achieve- 
ments, for  it  would  be  to  describe  very  many  of  the 
most  intricate  workings  of  the  human  mind,  as  well  as 
to  unravel  the  tangled  story  of  the  most  remarkable 
specific  performance  that  civilization  has  learned  in  all 
its  history.  The  beginnings  of  such  an  analysis  and 
description  are  attempted,  with  the  help  of  many  co- 
workers,  in  the  psychological  chapters  which  follow. 
The  strange  and  fascinating  story  of  how  the  book 
and  page  have  grown  to  be  is  sketched  in  the  chapters 
on  the  history  of  reading,  using  the  records  of  many 
patient  scholars. 

So  much  for  the  appeal  which  reading  makes  to  our 
psychological  and  historical  interests,  to  our  naive  curi- 
osity and  the  concern  which  we  have  for  the  penetration 
of  mysteries.  Perhaps  most  of  my  psychological  and 
historical  chapters  owe  their  origin  to  this  motive,  the 


basis  of  much  of  our  science  for  science'  sake.  But 
reading  and  books  are  of  even  greater  concern  to  us  for 
the  reader's  sake.  What  a  habit,  this,  that  has  fastened 
itself  upon  us  in  modern  times !  While  the  art  of  read- 
ing is  indeed  so  very  old,  and  while  the  practice  was 
even  so  prevalent  among  certain  ancient  peoples  that 
learning  to  read  is  recorded  to  have  been  compulsory 
at  one  time  upon  all  free  Chaldeans,  yet  the  absence 
of  printed  matter,  in  all  early  times,  made  it  impossible 
that  reading  should  be  anything  like  the  habitual 
practice  of  the  present,  except  among  very  limited  numbers 
and  special  classes  of  individuals.  But  since  the  inven- 
tion of  printing,  the  reading  habit  has  steadily  grown  upon 
the  whole  civilized  world ;  and,  furthered  by  modern  laws 
for  compulsory  education,  this  habit  has  become  the  most 
striking  and  important  artificial  activity  to  which  the 
human  race  has  ever  been  moulded.  Printed  matter  has 
been  so  diffused,  and  all  that  we  do  is  so  concerned  with 
it,  that  a  very  considerable  proportion  of  most  people's 
waking  time  is  taken  up  with  the  contemplation  of  reading 
symbols.  This  applies,  of  course,  not  merely  to  the  read- 
ing of  books  and  papers ;  but  in  the  car  or  on  the  driveway, 
in  the  street  or  at  the  railway  station,  advertisements, 
signs,  notices,  —  what-not  of  printed  matter,  —  keep  one 
reading.  At  the  opera  or  concert  there  is  the  libretto  or 
program,  and  when  interest  palls,  these  are  read  and 
reread,  even  to  the  last  silly  advertisement.  One  is  sel- 


8  INTRODUCTION 

dom  out  of  sight  of  some  sort  of  matter  to  be  read,  and 
having  formed  the  reading  habit  it  has  become  second 
nature  to  read  all  that  appears.  Printed  matter  has  be* 
come  a  stimulus  which  sets  off,  reflexly,  a  sensori-motor 
activity  which  goes  off  on  sight  anywhere,  and  which  con- 
tinues until  there  is  no  more  to  be  read  or  until  one  is 
checked  by  disgust  or  by  a  counter-interest. 

And  yet  this  habit  to  which  we  subject  ourselves  and 
our  children  for  so  considerable  a  part  of  the  time  is  an 
unnatural  one,  intensely  artificial  in  many  respects.  The 
human  eye  and  the  human  mind,  the  most  delicate  products 
of  evolution,  were  evolved  in  adaptation  to  conditions 
quite  other  than  those  of  reading.  Such  functionings  as 
reading  requires  not  having  been  foreseen  in  the  con- 
struction of  these  organs,  we  need  not  be  surprised  that 
our  continued  and  careless  exercise  of  these  unusual 
functions  causes  fatigue  and,  hi  very  many  cases,  certain 
dangerous  forms  of  degeneration.  The  very  evident  in- 
heritance of  some  of  the  more  disastrous  effects,  such  as 
myopia  and  nerve  exhaustion,  warns  us  of  the  danger  of 
race  degeneration  from  this  source. 

For  the  sake  of  millions  of  tired  readers,  then,  it  may 
well  be  asked,  and  until  recently  the  question  has  scarcely 
been  raised,  What  are  the  unusual  conditions  and  func- 
tionings that  are  enforced  upon  the  organism  in  reading  ? 
Just  what,  indeed,  do  we  do,  with  eye  and  mind  and 
brain  and  nerves,  when  we  read  ?  And  what  may  be  done 


THE    MYSTERIES    AND    PROBLEMS    OF    READING  9 

to  avoid  or  minimize  the  dangers  that  come  with  this 
most  universal  and  most  artificial  of  habits  ?  The  answer 
can  only  be  given  by  an  analysis  of  the  process  of  reading 
and  an  examination  of  the  essential  nature  and  history  of 
the  page  and  book. 

And  then,  as  a  school  subject,  reading  is  an  old  curiosity 
shop  of  absurd  practices.  Until  as  late  as  thirty-five 
years  ago,  in  America,  the  blind  devotion  to  the  unreasoned 
and  unreasonable  ABC  method  of  learning  to  read  was 
as  universal  and  as  fetichistic  as  the  worship  of  reading 
itself  had  been.  Within  this  thirty-five  years  the  ABC 
fetich  has  been  put  away  in  most  quarters,  and  the 
results  of  trial  and  error  with  new  devices  have  given 
us  somewhat  better  methods,  and  best  of  all  have 
put  us  in  an  inquiring  and  more  humble  frame  of 
mind.  But  after  all  we  have  thus  far  been  content  with 
trial  and  error,  too  often  allowing  the  publishers  to 
be  our  jury,  and  a  real  rationalization  of  the  process 
of  inducting  the  child  into  the  practice  of  reading  has 
not  been  made.  We  have  surely  come  to  the  place 
where  we  need  to  know  just  what  the  child  normally 
does  when  he  reads,  in  order  to  plan  a  natural  and  eco- 
nomical method  of  learning  to  read.  We  have  come  to 
the  place  where  we  need  to  pass  in  review  all  the  methods 
that  have  been  tried  in  all  the  centuries  of  reading,  and  to 
learn  any  little  that  we  can  from  each.  We  need,  too,  to 
take  a  more  profound  survey,  and  to  learn  from  the  tortu- 


10  INTRODUCTION 

ous  yet  ever  progressive  path  which  the  race  has  followed, 
in  the  hundreds  of  centuries  in  which  it  has  been  develop- 
ing reading  and  writing,  the  significant  suggestions  which 
this  ethnic  experience  may  have  for  our  own  further  devel- 
opment of  methods  in  reading  and  writing  and  printing. 

Whatever  side  of  reading  we  consider  we  are  challenged 
to  investigate.  For  instance,  we  have  long  known  that 
some  readers  read  four  times  as  fast  as  others  of  equal 
intelligence,  and  yet  obtain  better  results.  Yet  we  have 
remained  content  to  completely  ignore  the  question  of 
rate,  hi  teaching  to  read ;  the  only  times  it  is  mentioned, 
usually,  being  when  the  pupil  is  cautioned  "not  to  read 
too  fast."  We  know  that  the  reading  of  life  is  almost 
exclusively  silent  reading.  Yet  in  preparing  for  life  we 
are  instructed  almost  exclusively  in  reading  aloud,  and 
have  not  troubled  ourselves  to  ask  whether  habits  learned 
in  reading  aloud  may  not  be  hurtful  in  reading  silently. 
We  have  learned  comparatively  recently  that  nearly  if 
not  quite  all  readers  say  over  again  within  themselves  all 
that  they  read.  Yet  no  one  has  thought  to  determine 
whether  purely  visual  reading,  omitting  this  complex 
functioning  of  speech,  may  not  be  learned  and  be  most 
economical  of  time  and  energy.  We  have  made  a  fetich 
of  our  doctrine  of  formal  discipline,  and  formal  reading 
has  kept  its  artificial  place  in  our  curriculum  supported  in 
part  by  this  now  fast-decaying  prop.  But  when  have  com- 
petent persons  taken  the  trouble  to  really  analyze  what 


THE    MYSTERIES    AND   PROBLEMS    OF    READING         II 

in  mind  is  exercised  or  disciplined  when  we  read  or  when 
we  learn  to  read?  And  above  all,  how  we  have  most 
wastefully  failed  to  use  the  real  opportunities  that  reading 
offers  for  discipline,  the  opportunities  for  training  pupils  to 
effective  use  of  books  and  library,  to  selective  reading,  and 
to  the  prompt  feeling  for  and  use  of  values  in  what  is  read  ! 
Indeed,  when  we  ask  seriously  why  we  do,  as  we  do, 
almost  anything  that  we  commonly  do  in  reading  or  in 
learning  to  read,  the  answer  is  that  so  it  has  always  been 
done.  Why,  indeed,  should  we  read  from  side  to  side 
along  a  narrow  line,  as  the  printers  have  found  it  con- 
venient to  print,  and  not  down  or  up  like  the  Chinese 
and  old  Egyptians?  Why  have  we  not  turned  inventive 
genius  to  the  entirely  possible  task  of  making  a  page  that 
can  be  read  with  one-fourth  of  the  eye-work  required  by 
the  page  of  the  present  ?  So  slowly  does  thought  find  its 
way  to  the  rationalization  of  the  common  things  that  we 
do  in  life.  So  rich  are  the  possibilities  for  research  in 
many  lines.  So  vital  to  economy  in  education  and  in  life 
is  the  particular  group  of  preliminary  researches  on  read- 
ing, the  results  of  which  we  attempt  to  bring  together 
in  this  volume.  Though  but  the  beginnings  of  what  is  to 
be  done,  and  but  faintly  suggesting,  if  at  all,  the  answers 
to  many  of  the  questions  raised,  we  shall  at  least  break 
ground  for  the  more  complete  work  that  is  to  follow.  And 
first  we  shall  attempt  an  analysis  and  description  of  the 
reading  process  itself. 


PART  I 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 


CHAPTER  H 

THE  WORK  OF  THE  EYE  IN  READING 

IF  we  sit  directly  before  one  who  is  reading  and  watch 
his  eyes  closely;  or,  more  conveniently,  perhaps,  if  we 
have  him  hold  a  hand  mirror  flat  on  the  adjoining  page 
as  he  reads,  while  we  look  over  his  shoulder,  we  will 
notice  that  his  eyes  move  pretty  regularly  from  side  to 
side  along  the  printed  lines.  We  may  count  these  sweeps 
from  left  to  right,  as  a  page  is  read,  and  at  the  end  will 
find  that  they  correspond  to  the  number  of  lines  on  the 
page.  The  reader  may  insist  that  he  reads  several  lines 
or  even  a  paragraph  with  one  sweep  of  the  eye.  He  has 
perhaps  grasped  the  thought  of  the  lines  or  paragraph 
in  one  unitary  act;  and  being  quite  unconscious  of  the 
movements  of  his  eyes,  he  may  very  naturally  suppose  that 
he  has  taken  but  one  "look"  at  the  lines.  However, 
I  have  been  able  without  fail  to  count  the  lines  of  the  page 
from  the  movements  of  the  reader's  eyes,  whenever  the 
whole  page  was  actually  read,  not  skimmed ;  and  in  using 
apparatus  which  recorded  every  movement,  the  eyes  have 
been  found  in  every  case  to  move  from  side  to  side,  line 
by  line,  without  missing  any  line. 

As  you  watch  the  reading,  you  notice,  too,  that  the  eyes 
do  not  move  continuously  from  left  to  right  along  the  line, 

15 


1 6  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

but  proceed  by  a  succession  of  quick,  short  movements 
to  the  end,  then  return  in  one  quick,  usually  unbroken 
movement  to  the  left.  You  find  all  this  very  evident. 
And  yet  most  of  those  who  have  studied  the  eye  have 
curiously  failed  to  note  that  the  movement  was  discon- 
tinuous; and  up  to  about  1879,  when  Professor  Javal 
called  attention  to  it,  I  find  no  mention  of  the  fact  in  the 
literature.  Indeed,  I  have  not  myself  seen  mention  of 
these  reading  movements  until  1898,  except  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Professor  Javal  and  some  other  French  authors 
who  took  up  his  discovery,  and  in  a  paper  published  in 
1895  by  Professor  Alexander  Brown,  of  Edinburgh.  It  is 
a  curious  instance  of  the  failure  of  scientists  to  make  first- 
hand observations  except  along  certain  lines  that  have 
become  habitual. 

You  will  find  that  there  are  at  least  two  pauses  for  every 
line,  and  almost  always  more  than  that  for  lines  of  this 
length,  —  from  three  to  five  pauses,  usually,  and  even 
more  when  the  reading  proceeds  very  slowly.  The  move- 
ments are  so  very  quick  that  you  may  wonder  as  you  try 
to  follow  them  whether  the  reader  has  time  to  see  anything 
during  the  movement,  and  you  may  forecast,  as  Professor 
Javal  did,  what  later  experiments  have  seemed  to  prove, 
that  there  is  practically  no  reading,  or  rather  no  direct 
seeing  of  the  words  and  letters,  except  during  the  pauses. 

You  will  find  it  impossible  to  determine  just  what  word 
is  being  looked  at,  or  fixated,  as  we  say,  at  any  moment ; 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  17 

and  the  reader  himself  cannot  give  a  much  more  accurate 
account  of  this  than  can  the  onlooker,  although  he  often 
supposes  that  he  can. 

An  attempt  to  count  the  pauses  for  each  line  will  give 
rise  to  some  curious  difficulties,  in  case  you  "lay  it  on  your 
conscience"  to  get  the  number  right.  If  the  movements 
occurred  at  regular  time  intervals,  so  many  per  second, 
you  might  get  on  very  well  with  them;  but  it  has  been 
found  that  they  vary  greatly  in  extent,  and  that  some 
of  the  pauses  are  very  much  longer  than  others.  This 
irregularity  prevents  the  rhythmic  grouping  which  helps 
so  much  in  counting,  and  forces  one  to  make  a  particular 
counting  reaction,  say  to  tap  with  a  pencil  or  to  inwardly 
say  "one,  two,"  etc.,  for  each  movement.  One  may  do 
this  for  a  reader  who  is  not  very  speedy,  but  I  doubt 
if  it  is  possible,  even  with  special  training,  to  make  accu- 
rate counts,  by  this  method,  of  the  movements  of  the 
eyes  of  'persons  who  read  rather  fast.  Besides  the  diffi- 
culty of  the  counting  itself,  there  is  always  the  possibility 
of  losing  movements  that  occur  while  your  own  eye  is 
in  motion,  as  you  are  practically  blind  to  what  occurs 
while  you  are  changing  your  own  fixation;  just  as  in 
boxing,  one  may  be  startled  by  a  blow  that  started  while 
his  eye  was  moving,  attracted  by  a  feint.  And  we  know 
the  rule,  as  Professor  Dodge  observes,  that  the  fencer 
should  look  his  opponent  in  the  eye,  trusting  to  indirect 
vision  for  information  about  his  movements. 


1 8  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

Professor  Javal,  of  the  University  of  Paris,  seems,  as 
has  been  said,  to  have  been  the  first  to  note  the  actual 
character  of  the  eye's  movements  in  reading.  He  con- 
cluded that  there  was  a  pause  about  every  ten  letters,  and 
thought  that  this  was  about  the  amount  that  could  be 
seen  clearly  at  one  fixation.  He  found  that  after  reading 
he  had  after-images  of  straight  gray  lines  correspond- 
ing to  the  parallel  lines  of  print,  and  concluded  that  the 
eye's  fixation  point  did  not  leave  the  line  as  it  moved 
forward  in  reading.  Finding  that  the  upper  half  of  the 
line  was  most  important  for  reading,  as  can  be  seen  at 
once  by  dividing  a  line  in  halves  horizontally  and  com- 
paring the  legibility  of  the  upper  and  lower  halves,  he 
concluded,  from  this  and  other  observations,  that  the 
fixation  point  moves  along  between  the  middle  and  top 
of  the  small  letters.  He  also  stated  that  the  move- 
ment was  such  as  to  prevent  the  seeing  of  what  was  read 
except  during  the  reading  pauses. 

While  not  all  of  Professor  Javal's  observations  are 
conclusive,  he  deserves  more  than  does  any  one  else  the 
credit  for  making  the  initial  discoveries  in  this  field,  and 
for  initiating  a  considerable  number  of  later  studies. 
His  own  further  work  was  prevented  by  his  losing  his 
sight,  although,  upon  calling  to  see  him  a  few  years  ago, 
I  found  him  busily  engaged  in  experimenting  upon  the 
reading  of  the  blind. 

M.  Lamare,  working  with  Professor  Javal,  found  it 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  19 

simpler  to  count  a  series  of  sounds  produced,  in  a  micro- 
phone, by  the  eye-movements.  The  eyelid  is  displaced 
a  little  at  each  movement  of  the  eye,  and  this  gave  the 
necessary  stimulus  in  an  electric  circuit.  Some  informa- 
tion about  the  movements  was  thus  obtained,  although 
the  author  is  careful  to  acknowledge  the  inadequacy  of 
even  this  method  of  counting,  and  guards  himself  against 
making  more  than  general  conclusions.  M.  Landolt, 
continuing  the  study  at  the  University  of  Paris,  and  ob- 
serving the  movements  directly,  concluded  that  on  an 
average  1.55  words  were  read  per  reading  pause,  at  the 
ordinary  reading  distance.  Reading  of  a  foreign  lan- 
guage required  more  pauses,  as  did  also  the  reading  of 
detached  words,  numbers,  and  lists  of  proper  names. 
He  found  that  the  small  movements  were  very  fatiguing, 
and  that,  since  the  angular  excursion  increases  as  the 
reading  matter  is  brought  nearer  to  the  eye,  this  may 
account  for  the  tendency  of  children  to  bring  their  books 
too  near  the  eye.  Relief  is  thus  obtained  from  the  fatigue 
incident  to  small-angled  movements,  but  the  work  of  the 
muscles  of  accommodation  and  convergence  is  correspond- 
ingly increased,  with  the  resulting  tendency  to  myopia. 
Doubling  the  distance  of  the  page  from  the  eye  increased 
the  number  of  movements  in  the  ratio  of  nine  to  seven,  the 
number  of  eye-movements  seeming  to  depend  upon  the 
number  of  words  per  line  rather  than  upon  the  visual 
angle  subtended.  Landolt 's  method  obliged  him,  as  he 


20  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

states,  to  have  his  readers  read  slowly,  and  more  move- 
ments are  made  by  the  slow  readers. 

Dr.  Ahrens,  at  the  University  of  Rostock,  Germany, 
attached  a  light  ivory  cup  to  the  cornea  of  a  reader's 
eye;  and  fastening  a  bristle  pointer  to  the  cup,  he  at- 
tempted to  get  from  this  a  tracing  of  the  eye's  movements 
written  on  a  smoked  surface.  He  was  unsuccessful,  but 
he  had  given  a  valuable  suggestion. 

Dr.  Lough,  at  Harvard  University,  and  Professor 
Delabarre,  at  Brown  University,  at  a  considerably  later 
time,  attached  a  plaster  of  Paris  cup  to  the  cornea  and 
obtained  some  records  of  the  movements  of  the  eye,  but 
apparently  obtained  no  record  of  the  movements  in  read- 
ing. 

Erdmann  and  Dodge,  in  an  extended  investigation  of 
reading  made  at  the  University  of  Halle,  Germany,  and 
published  in  1898,  studied  the  movements  of  the  eye  in 
reading,  using  the  mirror  method  of  direct  observation 
referred  to  on  a  previous  page.  They  found  that  the 
number  of  pauses  did  not  vary  greatly  from  line  to 
line,  for  the  same  reader  and  with  easy  familiar  reading 
matter.  There  were  fewer  pauses  with  familiar  matter. 
In  reading  lines  from  a  familiar  philosophical  treatise, 
printed  in  English,  with  lines  83  millimeters  in  length, 
Dodge,  an  American,  averaged  from  three  to  five  pauses 
per  line,  according  to  the  familiarity  of  the  passages  read. 
Erdmann,  a  German,  averaged  from  five  to  seven  pauses 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  21 

per  line,  under  the  same  conditions,  in  reading  a  familial 
German  scientific  work,  with  lines  122  millimeters  in  length. 
In  the  initial  readings,  Dodge  averaged  five  pauses  per 
line  and  Erdmann  seven.  The  variations  above  and 
below  these  latter  averages  were  small  and  infrequent. 
More  pauses  were  made  in  reading  a  foreign  language. 
Proof-reading  required  about  three  times  as  many  pauses 
as  regular  reading,  in  the  case  of  Erdmann.  In  writing 
there  seemed  to  be  a  pause  for  about  every  two  letters, 
but  they  could  not  be  sure  that  they  noted  all  of  the  move- 
ments here. 

By  watching  a  reader's  eye  through  a  telescope  arranged 
to  permit  measurement  of  horizontal  distances  observed, 
they  found  that  the  first  pause  was  almost  always  within 
the  line,  and  that  the  last  was  still  farther  from  the  end 
of  the  line.  The  more  familiar  a  text,  the  greater  was 
the  indentation  at  the  left,  and  more  especially  still  at  the 
right.  They  consider  that  the  greater  indentation  at  the 
right  is  because  the  previous  context  makes  it  easier  to 
fill  out  the  end  of  the  line  apperceptively,  and  also  because 
the  last  section  of  the  line  is  seen  longer  in  indirect  vision 
than  is  the  first  section,  the  reader  getting  no  data  from 
the  beginning  of  the  line  until  he  arrives  at  it. 

These  authors  made  some  observations  which  seemed 
to  indicate  that  the  fixations  of  the  eye  in  reading  were 
almost  exclusively  upon  words,  upon  the  middle  of  the 
word  usually.  However,  the  experiments  were  not 


22  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

conclusive,  and  did  not  permit  of  the  marking  of  the 
actual  places  fixated. 

Erdmann  and  Dodge  did  not  measure  the  speed  of  the 
eye's  movements  in  reading.  Lamansky  had  measured 
the  speed  of  the  eye's  movements  in  general,  by  counting 
the  number  of  after-images  produced  during  a  given 
movement  of  a  pencil  of  light  flashed  into  the  eye  at 
regular  intervals  through  the  perforations  in  a  rotating 
disk.  Dodge  repeated  these  experiments,  and  then  car- 
ried over  the  results  obtained  for  the  speed  of  eye-move- 
ments as  they  occur  in  moving  voluntarily  from  one  fixa- 
tion point  to  another,  to  the  movements  that  occur  in 
reading.  The  results,  as  published  in  1898,  did  not  agree 
with  those  of  Lamansky,  and  indicated  that  the  time  re- 
quired for  an  eye-movement  in  reading  was  about  .015 
second.  These  experimenters  had  no  means  of  measuring 
the  duration  of  the  reading  pauses,  but  seem  to  have 
supposed  them  to  be  of  tolerably  uniform  length  for  a 
given  reading.  The  pauses  have  later,  however,  been 
shown  to  vary  greatly  in  length. 

Professor  Dodge  has  later  succeeded  in  photographing 
upon  a  moving  plate  a  beam  of  light  reflected  from  the 
eye  at  different  angles  during  its  movement  from  one 
fixation  point  to  another,  thus  permitting  a  computation 
of  the  rate  of  movement.  The  tests  that  he  made  of  the 
movement  in  reading  showed  that  the  forward  movements 
varied  from  two  to  seven  degrees,  and  that  the  time  occu- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  23 

pied  by  these  was,  on  an  average  for  three  readers,  nearly 
.023  second.  The  return  movement  through  twelve  to 
fourteen  degrees  required  a  little  less  than  .041  second. 
As  the  lines  subtended  an  angle  of  sixteen  degrees,  the  eye 
evidently  passed  over  but  three-fourths  to  seven-eighths 
of  each  line. 

In  experimenting  upon  the  psychology  of  reading,  in 
1897-1898,  it  seemed  to  me  impossible,  from  my  own 
observations  and  from  those  of  all  earlier  experimenters 
who  had  tried  direct  observations  of  the  reader's  eye,  to 
get  trustworthy  account,  by  direct  observation,  of  the 
speed,  nature,  and  even  number  of  the  eye's  movements  in 
reading,  of  the  length  and  variation  of  the  reading  pauses, 
etc.  Nor  could  the  reader  himself  give  even  so  good  an 
account.  For  him  the  succession  of  movements  and 
pauses  is  practically  non-existent,  except  when  the  eyes 
are  very  tired  or  in  some  way  abnormal.  In  certain  cases 
of  abnormal  vision,  it  is  true,  some  valuable  observations 
may  be  made  by  the  reader.  For  example,  a  patient  who 
had  no  use  of  the  left  halves  of  his  retinae  and  thus  could 
not  see  any  letters  that  lay  to  the  right  of  the  point  fixated, 
was  quite  conscious  of  the  jerky  forward  movement  of  his 
eyes  as  section  after  section  of  new  matter  came  into  view. 
Again,  some  readers  become  quite  conscious  of  the  pres- 
ence of  the  muscae  volitantes,  or  flitting  spots  that  appear 
more  or  less  in  the  vision  of  most  people;  and  these  give 
some  notion  of  the  jerky  character  of  the  movements. 


24  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING 

Most  of  us,  however,  find  ourselves  getting  over  the 
page  rather  smoothly  and  continuously,  apparently  see- 
ing distinctly  a  considerable  portion  of  it  at  once,  and 
without  interruptions  of  any  kind.  Words,  letters,  and 
letter-groups  flash  into  greater  distinctness  from  moment 
to  moment,  and  there  is  some  thought  of  a  mental  travers- 
ing of  the  lines.  If  we  watch  closely,  we  are  apt  to  find 
some  sort  of  inner  utterance  of  what  is  being  read,  and 
we  have  a  notion  of  the  meaning  of  it  all,  although  we 
cannot  very  well  describe  this  consciousness  of  meaning. 
Thus  reading  appears  to  the  casual  introspection  of  the 
reader.  We  find,  however,  that  underneath  this  apparent 
simplicity,  there  is  an  astounding  complexity  of  processes. 
These  have  been  built  up  slowly,  and  by  an  immense 
amount  of  practice,  until  they  have  organized  and  settled 
into  the  smoothly  running  machinery  of  our  present-day 
reading.  The  psychologist's  analysis  discloses  a  con- 
dition which  impresses  one,  to  use  Francis  Galton's 
figure,  as  "when  the  basement  of  our  house  happens  to 
be  under  thorough  sanitary  repairs,  and  we  realize  for  the 
first  time  the  complex  system  of  drains  and  gas  and  water 
pipes,  flues,  bell-wires,  and  so  forth,  upon  which  our  com- 
fort depends,  but  which  are  usually  hidden  out  of  sight, 
and  with  whose  existence,  so  long  as  they  acted  well,  we 
had  never  troubled  ourselves."  l 

As  a  beginning  of  such  analysis  of  reading,  it  seemed 

1  "  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Faculty,"  p.  186. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  25 

important  to  obtain  a  definite  description  of  the  work  of 
the  eye.  For  this  purpose  I  arranged  apparatus  as  fol- 
lows :  A  little  plaster  of  Paris  cup  was  moulded  to  fit  the 
cornea  accurately  and  smoothly,  sand-papered  until  it 
was  very  light  and  thin,  and  placed  upon  the  front  sur- 
face of  the  eye,  the  cup  adhering  tightly  to  the  moist 
cornea.  No  inconvenience  was  felt,  as  the  corneal  sur- 
face was  made  insensitive  by  the  use  of  a  little  holocain, 
or  sometimes  cocaine.  A  round  hole  in  the  cup  permitted 
the  observer  to  read  with  this  eye,  and  the  other  eye  was 
left  free.  A  light  tubular  lever  of  celloidin  and  glass 
connected  the  cup  to  an  aluminum  pointer,  flat  and  thin, 
which  responded  instantly  to  the  slightest  movement  of 
the  eye;  and,  suspended  over  the  smoked-paper  surface 
of  a  moving  drum-cylinder,  the  aluminum  point  traced  a 
record  of  the  eye's  movement  as  the  observer  read.  The 
drawing  (Fig.  i)  shows  the  arrangement  in  the  earlier 
and  simpler  form.  The  observer's  head  rested  in  a  frame 
which  was  arranged  to  prevent  movements  that  would 
interfere  with  the  record,  and  which  held  an  attachment  to 
prevent  the  eyelids  from  interfering  with  the  cup.  The 
weight  and  friction  of  the  recording  apparatus  was  re- 
duced to  a  minimum,  the  weight  of  all  the  parts  moved 
by  the  eye  being  but  a  little  more  than  half  a  gram,  while 
the  weight  resting  directly  upon  the  eye  was  less  than 
one-seventh  of  a  gram.  During  the  reading,  the  reader 
was  usually  quite  unconscious  of  there  being  an  attach- 


26 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 


ment  to  his  eye,  and  the  reading  proceeded  as  glibly  and 
easily  as  could  be  desired. 

Records  were  made  from  a  large  number  of  readings, 
with  various  lengths  of  line,  sizes  of  type,  distances  of 
reading  matter,  etc.  Sometimes  the  reading  was  at  nor- 
mal speed,  sometimes  as  fast  as  the  reader  could  possibly 


FIG.  i 

read.  The  apparatus  seemed  to  work  equally  well  undei 
all  the  various  conditions,  even  when  the  speed  reached 
an  average  of  twelve  words  per  second.  In  order  to 
measure  the  speed  an  electric  current  from  an  induction 
coil  was  passed  through  the  pointer  to  the  drum.  This 
current  was  interrupted  at  very  regular  short  intervals 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  27 

by  the  vibrations  of  an  electrically  driven  tuning-fork, 
the  snap  of  the  spark  from  the  pointer's  tip  thus  displacing 
a  dot  of  soot  on  the  paper  record  at  each  interruption.  As 
the  pointer  flitted  over  the  drum  during  the  reading,  a 
tracing  was  thus  produced  like  that  shown  in  Figure  2. 
The  tracing  as  taken  of  course  magnified  the  actual  move- 
ment several  times. 

The  tracings  showed  that  the  eye  always  traversed  the 
page  line  by  line,  and  always  in  a  succession  of  quick 
movements  and  pauses  when  moving  from  left  to  right. 
Movements  in  retracal  occurred  but  seldom,  averaging 
about  once  in  seven  lines.  Apparently  the  eye  did  not 
wander  far  above  and  below  the  line  that  was  being  read, 
although  the  arrangement  of  the  apparatus  could  not 
show  this  certainly.  As  we  have  seen,  Professor  Javal 
thought  that  the  eye's  fixation  point  moved  along  the  line 
between  the  middle  and  top  of  the  small  letters,  but  I  do 
not  think  that  his  experiment  with  after-images  establishes 
this.  It  seems  to  me  probable  that  the  fixation  point 
varies  more  widely  than  this,  but  there  is  nothing  to  indi- 
cate that  it  wanders  perceptibly  above  or  below  the  line. 
The  return  sweep  when  a  line  was  finished  was  usually 
without  interruption,  although  about  once  in  six  lines  a 
halt  would  be  made  near  the  end  of  the  movement,  ap- 
parently for  the  eye  to  get  its  bearings  in  the  new  line. 
These  halts  in  the  return  movement  are  more  numerous 
in  reading  long  lines.  The  eye  is  apparently  guided  in 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 


FIG.  a. 
Specimen  Curve  of '  Spark '  Record. 

This  reproduction,  cat  by  &  careful  engraver  upon  a  block  on  which 
the  original  tracing  had  been  photographed,. shows  with  great  accuracy 
the  sort  of  record  from  which  the  times-  of  the  eye  movements  have  been 
determined.  The  chief  difference  between  the  original  and  the  repro- 
duction is  in  the  breadth 'of  the  horizontal  lines  which  are  finer  in  the 
original. 

The  curve  shows  the  movements  of  the  eye.  in  reading  six  lines,  pre- 
ceded and  followed  by  two  free  movements  of  the- eye  each-way,  in 
which  it  was  swept  from  -one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other,  the  begin- 
ning and  end  alone  being  fixated.  The  broad  vertical  lines  and  the 
round  blurs  in  the  reading  indicate  pauses  in  the  eye's  movements,  the 
successive  sparks  knocking  the  soot  away  from  a  considerable  space. 
The,  small  dots  standing  alone  or  like  beads  upon  .the  horizontal  lines, 
show  the  passage  of  single  sparks,  separated  from  each  other  by  0.0068 
sec.  The  breaks  in  the  horizontal  lines  indicate  that  the. writing  point 
was  not  at  all  times  iii  contact  with  the  surface  of  the  paper  though 
near  enough  for  the  spark  to  leap  across,  as  shown  by  the  solitary  dots. 

The  tracing  shows  clearly  the  fixation  pauses  'in  the  course*  of  the 
line,  the  general  tendency  to -make  the  "indentation"  greater  at  the 
right  than  at  the  left,  and  the  unbroken  sweep  of  the  return  from 
right  to  left. 

NOTE.   The  cut  and  description  are  reproduced  from  the  American 
Journal  of  Psychology t  VoL  XL 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF    READING  29 

making  the  return  by  the  consciousness  of  the  next  line's 
beginning,  seen  dimly  at  the  left  as  it  starts.     Such  guid- 
ance would  of  course  be  less  accurate  as  the  line  is  longer, 
and  this  may  necessitate  both  the  haltings  and  the  distrac- 
tion that  we  notice  introspectively  when  we  lose  the  line. 
In  reading  lines  of  the  length  shown  in  Figure  3,  the 
subject-matter  being  of  only  ordinary  difficulty,  the  small- 
Each  page  thtis  honey-combed,  was  fastened  closely  upon  a 
white  paper  background.     The  page  was  then  marked  off  into 
four  divisions.    Two  readings  were  .taken,  separated  by  sev 

FIG.  3 

est  number  of  movements  for  any  line  was  two,  the  largest 
seven.  Usually  there  were  from  four  to  six.  One  reader 
averaged  four  and  a  half  pauses  per  line  for  fifty-one  lines. 
Another  averaged  a  very  little  more.  These  readings  were 
at  the  ordinary  reading  distance.  Doubling  the  distance 
did  not  appreciably  lessen  the  number  of  pauses  per  line. 

ney  very  seldom  paid  any  attention  to  it.  If  they  wanted  to  do  cer- 
ain  things,  they  would  do  it  whether  the  .constitution  allowed  th^m 
o  or  not.  The  only  reason  they  had  a  constitution  was  because  they 

FIG.  4 

Of  course  this  means  that  the  angle  of  each  eye-move- 
ment grows  smaller  as  the  book  recedes,  possibly  with 
the  increased  tendency  to  fatigue  that  comes  with  small 
eye-movements,  as  experienced  when  you  look  along  the 
pickets  of  a  fence  or  the  letters  of  a  line,  although  in 
these  latter  cases  the  conditions  are  somewhat  different. 
Using  the  smaller  type  shown  in  Figure  4  slightly  in- 


30  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

creased  the  number  of  pauses  and  movements.  Using 
shorter  lines  of  course  reduced  the  number.  A  magazine 
article,  with  lines  of  the  length  and  type  shown  in  Fig.  5, 
gave  an  average  of  3.6  pauses  per  line,  there  being  always 
either  three  or  four  pauses  for  a  line.  A  newspaper  article, 

give  the  murderer  the  benefit  of  a  doubt, 
he  felt  as  a  man  that  the  doubt  could  not 
really  exist,  and  that  Tebaldo  had  in- 
tentionally put  him  under  the  seal  of  con- 
FIG.  5 

of  lines  and  type  as  in  Fig.  6,  gave  3.8  pauses  per  line  for 
one  reader  and  3.4  for  another. 

The  records  for  lines  of  all  lengths  show  that  the  eye 
seldom  moves  along  the  whole  extent  of  the  line,  but 
makes  the  first  pause  somewhat  within  the  line  and  the 
last  still  farther  within.  From  78  per  cent  to  82  per  cent 
of  the  line,  on  an  average,  was  actually  traversed  by  the 
eye,  in  reading  such  lines  as  are  shown  in  Figures  3  and 
4.  The  indentation  was  usually  in  the  vicinity  of  18  per 

American  citizens  could  not  have  a 
part.  But  I  am  satisfied  that  it  is  all 
ylgnt.  Every  one  of  tne  great  races 
that  a.re  blended  in  our  national  life  has 
Its  own  glorious  traditions  which  it 

FIG.  6 

cent  of  the  total  line  length,  varying  considerably  from 
line  to  line,  and  being  usually  considerably  greater  at  the 
right,  although  occasionally  it  was  greater  at  the  left.  In 
some  readings  the  first  pause  must  have  been  in  the  first 
half  of  the  first  word  in  most  of  the  lines,  while  in  other 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  3! 

passages  it  must  usually  have  been  in  the  second  or  even 
in  the  third  word.  For  a  given  passage,  the  reader 
seemed  to  fall  into  a  way  of  indenting  a  certain  amount 
at  the  beginning  or  end  of  a  line,  and  kept  this  tendency 
through  the  passage. 

The  extent  of  the  forward  movements  in  reading  varied 
greatly  in  all  cases,  and  the  conclusion  of  Javal  that  the 
eye  moves  over  the  extent  of  matter  that  can  be  read  at 
one  pause,  about  the  space  of  ten  letters  in  his  opinion, 
was  shown  to  be  unfounded.  The  specimen  tracing  above 
shows  the  great  difference  found  in  the  extent  of  the 
movements,  and  is  typical.  A  slight  movement  may  be 
followed  by  one  four  times  as  extensive,  and  the  move- 
ments are  in  general  very  irregular.  The  movements 
averaged  from  three  to  four  degrees  of  arc  in  the  various 
readings,  with  lines  of  the  length  shown  in  Figures  3 
and  4.  With  these  lines  the  return  sweep  usually  trav- 
ersed twelve  to  thirteen  degrees. 

The  forward  movements  of  the  eye  in  reading  were 
found  to  occupy  a  relatively  constant  time,  somewhat 
irrespective  of  their  extent.  In  one  reading,  the  move- 
ments of  the  eye  varied  in  extent  as  from  four  to  twenty- 
six,  while  the  times  for  these  movements  ranged  from  four 
to  seven.  Excluding  three  exceptionally  short  move- 
ments, the  others  in  this  same  reading  ranged  in  extent 
from  seven  and  a  half  to  twenty-six,  while  their  times 
ranged  only  from  six  to  seven. 


32  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING 

The  spark  record  indicated  that  the  absolute  time  re- 
quired for  each  movement  forward  varied  usually  between 
.04  second  and  less  than  .048  second.  The  return  move- 
ments usually  required  a  little  longer,  usually  from  .051 
to  .058  second.  Later  experiments  indicate,  as  we  shall 
see,  that  the  times  are  actually  considerably  shorter  than 
this. 

The  reading  pauses  were  of  very  variable  duration.  In 
one  of  the  readings  the  pauses  averaged  about  .19  second, 
but  the  average  variation  was  nearly  .05  second.  Another 
reading  by  the  same  observer  showed  an  average  pause 
of  less  than  .11  second,  with  one-third  less  variation. 
This  latter  record  was  taken  under  circumstances  which 
may  have  sometimes  permitted  the  current  to  snap  twice 
at  the  same  spot,  and  if  so,  the  pauses  were  really  a  little 
longer  than  as  above.  The  other  times  given  here  for 
the  pauses  were  measured  from  the  displacement  of  the 
drum  as  measured  by  an  electric  time-marker  connected 
with  the  laboratory  clock  and  writing  its  record  beside 
that  of  the  eye's  movement.  Two  additional  readings 
by  different  observers  gave  an  average  pause  of  a  little 
more  than  .18  second  for  each.  The  pauses  in  retracal 
and  at  interruptions  of  the  return  sweep  are  usually  shorter 
than  the  reading  pauses  proper  and  are  not  included  jn 
the  averages  above. 

For  rather  fast  readers,  then,  the  pauses  seem  to  average 
in  the  vicinity  of  .185  second;  but  the  variation  is  so  very 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  33 

great  that  any  average  is  misleading,  and  the  pauses  may 
really  be  of  almost  any  length.  The  averages,  however, 
show  the  interesting  fact  that  the  most  of  the  reading 
time  is  used  in  a  fixed  gaze  at  the  page  and  but  an  incon- 
siderable portion  of  the  time  is  used  in  the  eye's  move- 
ments. 

In  all  the  experiments  whose  results  are  given  above, 
the  readers  read  at  their  usual  rate,  silently,  and  for  the 
thought.  In  another  series  of  tests  they  were  asked  to 
read  as  fast  as  possible.  This  decreased  the  number  of 
pauses  per  line,  and  also  the  duration  of  the  pauses.  The 
extent  of  each  eye-movement  was  correspondingly  in- 
creased. The  speed  of  the  movements  was  not  increased 
in  the  least,  and  there  was  nothing  in  any  of  the  experi- 
ments to  indicate  that  the  rate  of  movement  is  subject 
to  direct  voluntary  control.  Fast  readers  thus  seem  to 
perform  less  eye- work,  their  movements  are  less  fatiguing 
in  so  far  as  large-angled  movements  may  be  easier  than 
small  ones,  and  they  take  less  time  for  visual  perception 
of  the  printed  matter. 

These  results  are  fairly  congruent  with  those  of  Erdmann 
and  Dodge  as  to  most  points,  except  as  to  the  rate  of  move- 
ment. Rather  fewer  pauses  per  line  were  found  in  my 
experiments  than  in  those  of  either  Erdmann  and  Dodge 
or  of  Javal  and  Landolt,  for  the  reading  of  new  matter. 
But  the  fact  that  Landolt's  readers  read  slowly  would 
account  for  the  more  numerous  pauses  in  his  case,  and  the 

D 


34  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

method  of  counting  may  have  led  to  reading  that  was 
slower  than  normal  in  all  these  cases.  On  the  other  hand, 
my  records  were  from  rather  fast  readers,  and  they  may 
have  made  somewhat  fewer  pauses  than  occur  in  ordinary 
reading. 

As  to  rate  of  movement,  we  have  seen  that  the  early 
measurements  by  Lamansky  gave  times  that  were  not  in 
agreement  with  the  later  ones  by  Dodge,  using  the  same 
method.  Dodge's  still  later  photographic  measurements 
show  a  still  slower  rate  of  movement,  and  with  consider- 
able individual  differences.  His  times  are  still  consider- 
ably shorter  than  those  found  in  my  own  experiments, 
averaging  nearly  .023  second  for  forward  movements 
of  from  two  to  seven  degrees,  and  nearly  .041  second  for 
return  movements  of  from  twelve  to  fourteen  degrees. 
While  a  part  of  this  difference  may  be  due  to  individual 
variations,  the  larger  part  of  it  is  doubtless  due  to  error 
somewhere.  As  we  shall  presently  see,  the  recent  meas- 
urements by  Dr.  Dearborn,  using  the  Dodge  method  of 
photographic  registration,  confirm  the  later  results  of 
Dodge  as  stated  above,  and  I  accept  these,  therefore,  as 
trustworthy  conclusions  on  the  rate  of  movement.  I  am 
unable  even  yet  to  certainly  locate  the  source  or  sources 
of  error  in  my  own  measurements  of  rate.  All  of  Professor 
Dodge's  criticisms  of  my  apparatus  were  in  my  own  mind 
in  its  construction;  and  it  seemed  to  me,  as  well  as  to 
several  psychologists  and  physicists  who  were  experienced 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  35 

in  the  manipulation  of  delicate  apparatus,  that  there  was 
little  likelihood  of  any  considerable  error.  Error,  how- 
ever, there  evidently  has  been;  and  I  am  at  present 
inclined  to  think  that  most  of  it  arose  through  a  slight 
yielding  of  the  corneal  surface  under  the  movement  of 
the  recording  attachment. 

Very  accurate  determinations  of  the  rate  of  eye-move- 
ment are  of  considerable  importance  along  several  lines 
of  psychological  inquiry,  which,  however,  do  not  concern 
us  here.  The  essential  problem  as  to  the  movements  in 
reading  is  to  know  whether  they  are  of  such  a  speed  as 
to  prevent  our  perceiving  letters  or  words  during  the 
movement.  This  question  is  already  practically  settled, 
provided  we  can  carry  over  to  reading  the  general  require- 
ments for  fusion  of  visual  stimuli.  The  rate  of  reading 
movements  is  much  too  fast  to  permit  our  getting  such 
data  during  the  movement  as  can  appreciably  help  us  in 
our  reading,  granting  that  the  laws  of  fusion  apply. 
Various  experimenters  have  shown  that  when  retinal 
stimulations  are  given  in  rapid  succession,  as  when  a  disk 
of  white  and  black  sectors  is  rotated  before  the  resting 
eye,  the  impressions  fuse  into  one  continuous  impression 
when  a  rate  of  thirty  to  sixty  stimulations  per  second  is 
reached.  But  in  reading  at  even  a  very  slow  speed,  and 
supposing  the  rate  of  the  eye-movement  to  be  the  slowest 
found  in  any  of  the  measurements,  the  succession  of  black 
Better-strokes  and  white  inter-spaces  occurs  at  a  rate  which 


36  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING 

is  far  faster  than  even  sixty  per  second,  and  which  would 
inevitably  produce  nothing  but  a  light-gray  blur,  if  the 
eye  were  still  and  the  line  shifted  horizontally  at  a  cor- 
responding rate.  The  experiment  may  be  tried  by  hold- 
ing a  pencil  tip  near  to  a  sheet  of  printed  matter,  as  a 
fixation  mark,  and  giving  the  paper  a  fairly  rapid  move- 
ment from  side  to  side.  If  the  movement  is  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  lines  of  print,  the  latter  will  appear  as  homoge- 
neous gray  bands,  with  no  letters  or  words  recognizable. 

But  why  do  we  not  see  these  gray  bands  as  we  read? 
Scarcely  a  trace  of  them  has  been  reported  by  any  ex- 
perimenter, except  that  Professor  Dodge  believed  that 
he  could  detect  faint  traces.  I  have  found  no  reader 
who  had  any  consciousness  of  them,  and  have  none  my- 
self. We  seem  to  see  the  letters  and  words  as  distinctly 
during  the  movements  as  at  the  pauses,  and  the  visual 
field  is  unbroken  to  consciousness. 

Professor  Cattell  advanced  the  hypothesis  that  the 
visual  organs  respond  to  retinal  changes  more  rapidly 
when  the  eye  moves  than  when  the  objects  are  in 
motion,  and  that  we  really  do  see  objects  distinctly 
during  the  eye's  movement.  He  believed  that  when  we 
look  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  a  row  of  books, 
for  instance,  we  can  note  titles,  etc.,  that  were  outside 
the  range  of  distinct  vision  before  the  movement  be- 
gan. Indeed,  in  moving  the  eye  over  black  and  white 
surfaces,  it  seemed  to  him  that  no  fusion  occurred  "even 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  37 

when  one  thousand  stimuli  per  second  fall  upon  each 
retinal  element."  1  However,  careful  observation  reveals 
the  fact  that  in  looking  along  a  row  of  books  or  any  other 
objects  which  we  attempt  to  perceive,  the  eye  makes  a 
succession  of  short  pauses  and  quick  movements,  as  hi 
reading,  and  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  suppose  that  there 
was. anything  perceived  during  the  movement.  Professor 
Cattell  supposed  that  a  very  large  number  of  pauses  would 
be  necessary  to  allow  of  distinct  perception,  if  no  data 
were  obtained  during  the  movement;  but  his  estimate  of 
one  degree  as  the  limit  of  the  "field  of  distinct  vision"  is 
much  too  small,  as  will  be  seen  later,  the  pauses  even  in 
reading  occurring  only  at  intervals  of  from  three  to  four 
degrees,  on  an  average. 

Professor  CattelPs  hypothesis  seemed  to  be  rendered 
untenable,  as  he  himself  frankly  acknowledged  in  a  later 
note  in  the  Psychological  Review,  by  some  experiments 
of  Professor  Dodge  upon  the  possibilities  of  vision  during 
eye-movement.  Professors  Erdmann  and  Dodge  had 
found  that  when  one  watches  his  own  eye  in  a  mirror,  it 
is  impossible,  when  the  eye  moves,  to  detect  any  trace  of 
the  movement.  This  furnishes  at  least  a  partial  demon- 
stration of  the  apparent  fact  that  we  are  not  usually  aware 
of  what  goes  on  in  the  field  of  vision  while  the  eye  is 
in  motion.  It  cannot,  however,  be  said  to  be  a  final 
test. 

1  Psychological  Review,  1900,  p.  325. 


38  THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

Professor  Dodge  made  some  further  experiments  to 
determine  whether  the  eye  is  quite  insensitive  to  impres- 
sions received  as  it  moves.  At  first  it  appeared  to  be  so. 
But  after  preliminary  practice,  and  with  more  intense 
illumination,  it  was  shown  conclusively  that  distinctions 
of  light  and  shade,  and  indeed  of  color,  can  be  made  in 
objects  that  are  exposed  only  during  the  movement. 
Furthermore,  under  the  special  conditions  of  the  experi- 
ment, it  was  found  that  lines  of  print  exposed  only  during 
the  eye's  movement  "gave  a  perfect  though  shadowy 
series  of  gray  bands  in  a  lighter  gray  background,  in  which 
individual  letters  or  words  were  absolutely  irrecognizable."1 

Professor  E.  B.  Holt,  of  Harvard,  made  a  series  of  care- 
ful experiments  to  determine  whether  "voluntary  move- 
ments of  the  eyes  condition  a  momentary,  visual,  central 
anaesthesia,"  and  concluded  that  they  did.  However, 
his  results,  even  if  finally  conclusive  on  this  point,  cannot 
be  carried  over  to  the  involuntary  movements  of  the  eye  in 
reading.2 

Professor  R.  S.  Woodworth,  of  Columbia,  on  the  basis 
of  other  experiments,  maintains  that  the  eye  is  not  anaes- 
thetic during  movement.  He  finds  that  an  image  thrown 
on  the  retina  during  the  eye's  movement  is  correctly 
localized  in  space,  that  muscae,  etc.,  are  seen  during  the 
eye-movements,  and  cites  the  fact  that  an  object  which 

1  Psychological  Review,  September,  1900,  p.  463. 
*  Ibid.,  Monograph  Supplement,  January,  1903. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  39 

moves  with  the  eye,  at  the  eye's  rate,  is  seen  clearly  dur- 
ing the  movement.1 

Finally,  Professor  Dodge,  in  his  article  in  the  Psycho- 
logical Bulletin  of  June  15,  1905,  says  that  he  has  "yet 
to  meet  with  any  unambiguous  evidence  of  anaesthesia 
during  eye-movement,  either  central  or  peripheral,"  and 
thinks  the  lack  of  clear  perception  during  eye-movements 
must  rest  largely  if  not  wholly  on  other  grounds.  Among 
the  more  important  of  these  latter  he  mentions  the  per- 
sistence of  the  positive  after-image  for  some  three  hun- 
dredthsof  a  second,  at  about  full  intensity;  the  inhibition 
by  the  following  stimulation  from  the  new  fixation  point, 
and  the  fact  that  the  stimulations  during  movement  are  not 
objects  of  interest  and  are,  therefore,  ignored  as  are  the 
muscae,  the  fencing  mask,  and  other  such  irrelevant 
stimuli. 

Evidently,  then,  the  retina  is  sensitive  to  impressions 
received  during  the  eye's  involuntary  movements,  such  as 
occur  in  reading,  although  it  is  not  shown  that  it  is  more 
sensitive  then  than  at  other  times.  Evidently,  too,  fusion 
of  impressions  may  occur  during  the  eye's  movement  as 
when  it  is  at  rest.  There  remains  the  question  as  to  why 
we  are  so  completely  unconscious  of  any  fusion  of  the 
letters  as  we  read. 

A  conclusive  answer  cannot  be  made  until  there  has 

1  Psychological  Bulletin,  February  15,  1906,  and  Proceedings  of  Ameri' 
can  Psychological  Association,  1905-1906. 


40  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING 

been  further  experimentation ;  and,  perhaps,  a  better  un- 
derstanding of  the  conditions  under  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  fusion  arises.  However,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  the  total  stimulation  given  during  the  movement  is 
very  brief  compared  with  that  of  the  preceding  reading 
pause,  certainly  not  more  than  one-fourth  as  long  in  most 
cases.  We  know  that  a  strong  memory  image  of  the  read- 
ing stimulus  tends  to  persist  after  the  pause,  as  after  any 
stimulus  of  such  duration;  and  this  would  tend  to  per- 
sist in  consciousness  to  the  exclusion  of  the  much  fainter 
and  briefer  stimulations  that  occur  during  the  movement. 
The  stimulations  occurring  during  the  movement  would 
have  their  own  effect  cut  short  prematurely  by  the  intense 
stimulation  of  the  succeeding  pause,  and  would  tend  to 
pass  unnoticed  hi  consequence. 

Mainly,  however,  as  has  long  been  known,  we  habitually 
ignore  stimulations  and  sensations  which  have  no  mean- 
ing for  us,  in  favor  of  those  which  carry  meaning.  Raw 
sensations  are  continually  ignored  in  favor  of  their  mean- 
ings, hi  all  the  sense  spheres ;  and  indeed  there  is  a  tendency 
of  consciousness  to  remove  in  the  direction  of  the  more 
and  more  remote  suggestions  from  any  given  stimulus, 
at  least  so  far  as  such  removal  is  helpful  in  practice.  The 
gray-blur  stimulus  produced  during  the  movement  car- 
ries no  meaning  of  its  own,  and  leads  no  whither  as  a  sign 
of  remoter  meanings.  It  is  faint,  of  most  transient  exist- 
ence, and  remains  beneath  the  threshold  of  clear  conscious- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  4! 

ness.  Our  ignoring  of  the  movement  stimulations  is  not 
exceptional  in  the  psychology  of  perception.  Stimula- 
tions constantly  occur  in  various  parts  of  our  bodies,  from 
pressure  of  our  clothing  and  of  the  body's  parts,  stimula- 
tions which  are  often  of  considerable  intensity,  but  which 
regularly  pass  unnoticed.  The  failure  of  most  people  to 
notice  the  entoptic  phenomena, — the  dark  spots  and  strange 
shapes  that  are  usually  to  be  found  in  the  field  of  vision, 
is,  as  Professor  Dodge  observes,  a  case  of  our  systematically 
ignoring  stimuli  which  would  disturb  our  clear  vision  if 
attended  to.  I  am  in  general  quite  of  his  opinion  that  the 
absence  of  the  consciousness  of  fusion  is  "centrally  as 
well  as  peripherally  conditioned." 

These  are  the  conclusions  which,  I  think,  the  facts  would 
ordinarily  be  said  to  warrant.  I  must  confess,  however, 
that  I  am,  as  yet,  not  entirely  satisfied  with  them.  Several 
minor  facts  brought  out  in  the  various  experiments  har- 
monize well  with  the  view  that  the  stimulations  occurring 
during  the  eye's  movement  may  be  effective  both  upon 
the  reflex  mechanism  of  movement  and  upon  the  conscious 
content,  and  that  they  are  correctly  localized  without 
fusion.  Professor  Holt's  discovery  that  a  stimulus  acting 
upon  the  retina  during  eye-movement  caused  a  reaction 
of  the  reflex  mechanism  in  the  direction  of  fixating  the 
stimulus;  Professor  Woodworth's  determination  that  an 
image  thrown  upon  the  retina  during  the  movement  is 
correctly  localized  in  space ;  these,  with  minor  indications 


42  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

from  various  sources,  are  suggestive  of  the  latter  view. 
Indeed,  do  we  have  the  consciousness  of  visual  fusion  in 
any  case  where  it  is  possible  to  apperceive  the  stimuli  as 
they  occur,  where  our  concern  is  with  apperceiving  them, 
and  where  the  conditions  are  such  as  to  permit  our  giving 
them  a  correct  orientation  in  space?  There  is  little  to 
indicate  that  a  new  orientation  with  reference  to  the 
reading  stimuli  arises  in  toto  when  the  eye  makes  a  new 
pause  in  reading.  There  is  much  to  indicate  that  the 
orientation  persists  from  pause  to  pause,  and  indeed  dur- 
ing temporary  closing  of  the  eyes.  A  compensatory  ad- 
justment of  the  field  of  vision  would  seem  to  be  made  as 
the  eye  moves  forward,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  at  any  instant 
of  the  movement  the  spatial  relation  of  the  body  and  self 
to  the  various  parts  of  the  visual  field  is  not  felt  as  truly, 
although  fleetingly,  as  when  the  eye  is  at  rest.  If  so,  then 
there  is  much  reason  to  suppose  that  the  stimulations  re- 
ceived from  the  page  as  the  eye  moves  are  properly  placed 
in  order  as  they  come,  with  no  possibility  of  a  blur.  It  is 
true  that  impressions  made  by  each  letter  or  smaller  form 
upon  any  given  retinal  area  would  be  very  brief  and 
slight ;  and  yet,  if  the  stimulations  are  sufficient  to  be  felt 
as  a  blur,  they  may  well  be  also  sufficient  to  serve  as  cues 
for  their  proper  projection  in  space,  without  blur. 

So  it  may  be  that  Professor  Cattell  was  right  in  his 
conclusion  if  not  in  his  method,  and  that  our  thought  of 
the  printed  line  gets  the  benefit  of  what  stimulations  occur 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  43 

during  eye-movement,  and  has  no  tendency  to  fuse  the 
impressions  because  these  are  taken  care  of  in  advance. 
Fusion  may  occur  only  when  there  is  inability  to  "  think  " 
the  data  given,  in  which  case  the  consciousness  arises  of 
the  data  themselves^  the  black- white  of  the  sensations.  The 
cases  in  which  fusion  occurs  have  always,  perhaps,  been 
cases  in  which  conditions  were  such  as  to  prevent  apper- 
ception or  compensatory  adjustment  of  the  field  of  vision; 
and  indeed  the  attempt  to  make  such  adjustment  is  seldom 
made  in  such  cases  as  produce  fusion.  These  suggestions, 
however,  are  offered  as  but  tentative,  and  of  no  scientific 
value  except  that  they  show,  to  my  mind,  that  the  absence 
of  fusion  during  eye-movement  presents  a  problem  which 
is  by  no  means  closed  at  the  present  stage  of  experimenta- 
tion. 

Since  most  of  the  above  account  was  written,  Dr. 
Dearborn  has  published  the  results  of  a  thorough  study 
of  the  eye's  movements  and  pauses  in  reading,  based 
upon  experiments  at  Columbia  University  in  which  Pro- 
fessor Dodge's  method  of  photographic  registration  was 
used.  Dr.  Dearborn's  results  agree,  in  the  main,  with 
those  of  earlier  experimenters,  but  they  give  additional 
information  that  is  of  much  importance.  It  was  found 
that  "the  more  pauses  there  are  in  a  line  the  shorter  their 
lengths,  on  the  average,  and,  vice  versa,  the  fewer  the 
pauses  the  larger  any  one  pause  is  apt  to  be."  "Viewed 
simply  from  the  standpoint  of  speed  of  reading,  it  is  in 


44  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING 

general  an  advantage  to  read  a  given  line  with  the  smallest 
possible  number  of  pauses,  because  while  the  elimination 
of  a  pause  increases  somewhat  the  average  duration  of  the 
remaining  pauses,  the  total  time  for  the  line  is  decreased, 
or  remains  constant."  The  number  of  pauses  per  line 
varies  greatly,  but  is  greater  for  the  slow  readers  and 
when  reading  slowly.  The  eye  readily  falls  into  a  brief 
"motor  habit"  of  making  a  certain  fixed  number  of  pauses 
per  line,  for  a  given  passage,  independently  of  the  nature 
of  the  subject-matter.  "The  eas*  of  the  formation  of 
motor  habits  seems  to  be  one  of  the  characteristics  of 
rapid  readers  as  contrasted  with  slower  ones."  In  mak- 
ing the  adjustment  for  the  return  sweep  at  the  end  of  the 
first  line,  and  sometimes  at  the  end  of  the  second,  the 
dependence  is  "solely  on  the  peripheral  local  signs.  The 
lorvger  the  line,  the  more  inexact  these  will  naturally  be." 
But,  if  the  lines  are  not  too  long,  "after  the  first  or  possibly 
the  second  horizontal  movement,  the  resident  muscular 
sensations  of  angular  displacement  govern  the  extent  of 
movement  of  the  succeeding  return  sweep.  This  is  the 
basis  of  the  motor  habit."  It  is  important,  therefore,  that 
the  lines  be  of  only  moderate  length  and  that  this  length 
be  approximately  uniform,  although  Dr.  Dearborn  agrees 
with  Professor  Cattell  that  "a  small  indentation  of  a  few 
millimeters,  for  example,  of  every  other  line  .  .  .  would 
help  to  differentiate  the  lines,  and  prevent  their  confusion^" 
He  finds  that  the  modern  primers  and  first  readers  con- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  4j 

stantly  violate  this  principle  of  uniformity)  -breaking--  up 
the  line  with  their  illustrations  and  often  rnaVfrigr  a  para- 
graph,  with  its  unequal  lines,  for  every  sentence.  Be- 
sides, the  lines  of  the  beginners'  books  are  usually  too  long. 
A  more  or  less  uniform  motor  habit  of  eye-movement  is 
to  be  acquired  in  the  beginning,  and  the  shorter  lines  of 
uniform  length  are  necessary  for  this.  Lines  of  varying 
length  "must  naturally  lead  to  a  more  cautious  mode  of 
eye-movement,  hard  to  overcome  later,  and  may  cause 
unnecessarily  slow  readers." 

The  average  duration  of  the  pauses  was  found  to  be 
uniformly  less  in  the  shorter  lines  than  in  the  long  ones. 
The  total  time  per  passage  is  also  decreased  in  moderately 
short  lines  of  right  arrangement.  It  was  discovered  that 
the  first  pause  in  each  line  is  distinctly  longer  than  the 
others,  especially  in  rapid  reading  and  with  rapid  readers. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  line,  also,  there  is  apt  to  be  a  pause 
of  greater  length  than  the  average,  although  shorter  than 
the  first.  At  the  initial  long  fixation  and  at  the  secondary 
long  one  the  "attention  expands,"  and  by  the  former  "a 
more  general  perception  is  secured  of  the  ideas  and  words 
that  follow  in  the  line.  The  succeeding  fixations  serve 
to  amplify  and  fill  out  this  general  perception.  Finally, 
this  expanding  of  the  field  of  attention  is  made  more 
frequently  and  with  greater  ease  in  the  short  line." 

In  general,  Dr.  Dearborn  thinks  that  differences  in  the 
rate  of  reading  in  the  same  individual  and  between  differ- 


46  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

ent  individuals  depend  "largely,  when  other  conditions 
are  constant,  upon  the  ease  with  which  a  regular,  rhyth- 
mical movement  can  be  established  and  sustained." 
The  peculiarities  of  such  a  movement  are  "first,  a  suc- 
cession of  the  same  number  of  pauses  per  line,  and  sec- 
ondly, a  certain  fairly  uniform  arrangement  in  the  order 
of  long  and  short  pauses,"  in  which  arrangement  the  first 
pause  should  be  longest,  with  a  secondary  pause  of  in- 
creased length  near  the  end  of  the  line.  When  "shorter 
lines"  are  mentioned  as  best  meeting  these  requirements, 
the  reference  is  to  lines  of  a  length  common  in  our  news- 
papers, or  a  little  longer.  Dr.  Dearborn  thinks  favorably 
of  "a  line  of  seventy-five  to  eighty-five  millimeters  or  about 
a  third  longer  than  the  ordinary  newspaper  line  of  the 
New  York  dailies,"  although  he  recognizes  that  his  data 
are  not  sufficient  to  warrant  any  conclusion  upon  this 
point. 

Dr.  Dearborn's  measurements  of  the  rate  of  the  eye's 
movement  in  reading  agree  substantially,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  those  of  Professor  Dodge,  and  these  may  be  taken  as 
representative  for  most  readers,  although  the  rate  was 
found  to  vary  considerably.  Dearborn,  therefore,  con- 
cludes that  there  is  "no  distinct  visual  impression"  during 
the  eye's  movement  in  reading.  Some  readers,  however, 
were  found  to  make  a  considerable  number  of  slow  shift- 
ing movements,  often  ten  to  twenty  times  slower  than 
the  usual  movement.  These  shifting  movements  are 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  47 

really  to  be  classed  as  unsteady  fixations,  the  eye  accom- 
panying the  movement  of  attention  as  the  latter  shifted, 
and  gathering  data  for  perception  as  it  moved.  "The 
eye  tends  to  follow  each  shift  of  the  attention  in  order  to 
bring  the  object  nearer  the  fovea,"  and  Dearborn  believes 
that  "the  unsteadiness  of  fixations  is  due  to  the  acute 
unbalance  and  general  alertness  of  attention  to  peripheral 
excitation."  "The  attention  is  ahead  and  pulling  the 
eye  along." 

.It  was  found  that  the  "exact  point  that  is  fixated  may 
be  in  any  part  of  the  words,  or  in  the  spacing  between 
them."  "It  does  not  fall  predominantly  in  the  first  part 
of  words,  nor  does  it  occur  more  frequently  in  the  first 
part  of  the  sentence  than  in  the  last,  and  apparently  pays 
little  attention  to  many  of  the  laws  of  apperception  or  the 
rules  of  the  rhetorician."  The  exact  points  of  fixation 
are  "significant  only  as  representing  the  point  about 
which  are  grouped  the  'block'  of  letters  that  are  simul- 
taneously perceived  as  one  word  or  phrase  complex.  It 
more  often  falls  in  the  first  third  than  at  the  centre  of  a 
given  perception  area."  "The  short  connective  and  non- 
substantive words,  the  prepositional  phrases  and  relative 
clauses,  make  the  greatest  demands  upon  perception,  and 
thus  require  most  fixations."  " They  necessitate  the  eye's 
coming  out  quite  to  the  edge  of  the  lines."  These  "transi- 
tive" parts  of  speech  are  "not  associated  in  one  phrase 
more  regularly  than  in  another,  they  cannot  be  fused  into 


48  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

a  larger  apperceptive  unit,  as  the  syllables  into  a\word 
form,  or  'phrase  whole';  but  each  stands  by  itself  and 
must  be  so  perceived."  "It  is  not  the  short  words,  as 
such,  but  the  words  which  cannot  be  easily  grouped  with 
others,  which  necessitate  separate  fixation."  Prepositions, 
conjunctions,  etc.,  "occur  now  with  one  word  and  now 
with  another;  they  cannot  without  danger  of  error  be 
fused  into  larger  wholes,  and,  for  that  reason,  they  must, 
except  where  the  context  gives  the  connection,  be  sep- 
arately perceived."  The  same  was  found  to  be  true  of 
numerals,  lines  of  nonsense-letters,  etc.,  and  the  explana- 
tion is  similar.  On  the  other  hand,  nouns,  adjectives, 
and  verbs,  and  especially  words  and  phrases  which  are 
familiar  to  the  apperception  of  the  reader,  or  for  which 
he  has  a  particular  memory,  "allow  of  an  exceptionally 
large  'jump'  between  fixation  pauses." 

Children  of  from  nine  to  eleven  years,  the  only  ages 
tested,  were  found  to  make  more  frequent  pauses  than 
adults,  and  generally  longer  pauses,  although  quite  short 
pauses  occur.  While  there  is  "some  unsteadiness  and 
refixation"  their  "accuracy  of  fixation  appears  as  exact 
as  that  of  adults."  "The  more  purely  physiological 
difficulties  have  been  fairly  well  mastered.  The  rate  of 
movement  in  the  return  sweeps  and  in  the  inter-fixation 
movements  is  not  different  from  that  of  the  adult." 

In  the  reading  of  a  single  adult  who  was  tested  for 
the  effects  of  fatigue,  it  was  found  that  after  a  hard  day's 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  49 

work  with  the  eyes  the  reader  made  more  pauses  and  longer 
ones  than  when  the  eyes  were  fresh  next  morning.  Eye- 
fatigue  was  thus  found  to  diminish  the  speed  of  reading, 
for  this  reader.  Some  further  experiments  showed  that 
the  eye  becomes  fatigued  very  quickly  in  making  move- 
ments through  a  large  angle,  covering  say  one  hundred 
and  fifty  millimeters  on  the  page.  At  least  the  rate  of 
movement  became  from  one-third  to  one-fourth  slower  in 
the  course  of  seven  movements.  This  indication  of  fatigue 
did  not  appear  to  any  considerable  extent  in  making  move- 
ments of  about  half  this  length,  and'  thus  furnishes  an 
additional  argument  in  favor  of  using  lines  of  moderate 
length.  I  cannot  agree,  however,  with  Dr.  Dearborn  in 
his  belief  that  these  results  negative  the  conclusion  of 
Landolt,  that  small-angled  movements  are  very  fatiguing, 
as  Landolt's  reference  is  to  the  very  short  excursions  such 
as  are  made  in  the  smaller  inter-fixation  movements.1 
Landolt  himself  instanced  the  fatigue  which  comes  when 
we  attempt  to  count  the  palings  on  a  closely  picketed  fence. 
Of  course  we  must  always  recognize  that  such  fatigue  may 
be  of  the  attention  rather  than  of  the  eye-muscles. 

We  may  note  in  conclusion  Dr.  Dearborn's  agreement 
with  the  writer  in  concluding  that  Javal's  theory  that  the 

1  In  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer  Dr.  Dearborn  tells  me  that  his  refer- 
ence to  Landolt  rested  upon  a  misunderstanding.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  agree  with  him  that  Landolt's  test  is  not  conclusive  for  the  reading 
movements. 


50  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

eye  moves  along  between  the  middle  and  top  of  the  small 
letters  is  "a  physical  impossibility,"  although  Dearborn's 
apparatus  did  not  permit,  as  mine  did  not,  definite  measure- 
ment of  movements  in  the  vertical  plane. 

Concluding  here  our  survey  of  the  eye's  movements 
and  pauses  as  mechanical  processes,  we  will  next  consider 
the  psychic  processes  of  perception  which  occur  in  dealing 
with  the  data  obtained  during  the  reading  pauses.  And 
first  we  shall  try  to  determine  the  amount  of  printed  mat- 
ter that  can  be  seen  clearly  at  any  moment  in  which  the 
eye  is  at  rest,  say  during  a  reading  pause. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  EXTENT  OF  READING  MATTER  PERCEIVED  DURING  A 
READING  PAUSE 

IN  looking  casually  over  a  printed  page,  one  is  apt  to 
think  that  a  very  considerable  portion  of  it  is  seen  at  any 
moment  with  distinctness  enough  for  reading.  The 
amount  that  can  be  seen  thus  distinctly  is  smaller  than  is 
generally  supposed.  The  illusion  may  come  partly  from 
the  fact  that  the  retina's  ability  to  discriminate  brightnesses, 
or  differences  in  the  light  and  dark  of  the  page,  does  not 
decrease  from  the  point  of  clearest  vision  outward  as  far 
as  is  reached  by  both  ends  of  the  ordinary  line,  when  one 
looks  at  the  middle.  So  most  of  the  page  appears  as 
bright  in  one  part  as  another.  Again,  since  by  long 
experience  we  know  that  we  can  at  once  see  distinctly 
any  part  of  the  field  at  will,  and  since  we  are  usually  un- 
conscious of  the  eye-movements  which  make  this  pos- 
sible, we  naturally  mistake  the  "reading  range"  given  by 
several  quick  eye-movements,  for  that  which  is  possible 
for  the  unmoved  eye. 

However,  if  you  will  look  fixedly  at  a  letter  in  the  middle 
of  the  page  and  will  attempt  to  name  the  letters  or  words 
about  it,  without  moving  the  eye  for  a  single  instant,  you 

51 


52  THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING 

will  discover  that  the  reading  range  of  the  unmoved  eye 
is  distinctly  limited.  Erdmann  and  Dodge,  in  trying  this 
experiment  on  a  page  of  German  printed  in  good  type, 
found  that  neither  of  them  could  see  letters  or  words 
clearly  beyond  the  ends  of  the  lines  represented  in  the 
diagram  below,  when  fixating  a  letter  at  the  central  dot. 
Not  all  of  even  this  amount  could  be  seen  clearly. 


FIG.  7 

Some  of  you  will  be  able  to  see  all  the  letters  distinctly 
over  a  little  larger  area  than  this;  a  few  will  not  be  able 
to  do  so  well,  for  some  readers  are  found  to  have  a  curi- 
ously limited  range  of  distinct  vision.  However,  if  you 
have  tried  the  experiment,  you  have  doubtless  noticed  that, 
beyond  the  circle  within  which  you  recognize  clearly  most 
or  all  of  the  letters  and  words,  there  is  also  recognized, 
now  dimly,  now  rather  distinctly,  an  occasional  letter  of 
characteristic  form,  most  often  a  capital,  —  or  even  a 
whole  word  of  striking  appearance,  and  this  at  a  con- 
siderable distance  from  the  fixation  point.  Erdmann 
and  Dodge  found  this  to  occur  at  the  distance  of  nearly 
or  quite  an  ordinary  line-length.  Sometimes  a  word  or 
a  letter  or  group  of  letters  flashes  up  momentarily  from 


\     53 

the  obscurity  of  indirect  vision.  Helmholtz  found,  in 
lighting  a  page  for  an  instant  by  the  electric  spark,  that 
particular  groups  of  letters  would  appear  here  and  there 
in  somewhat  the  same  fashion. 

Some  of  you  will  see  distinctly  much  farther  than  I  have 
suggested  as  possible,  because,  as  you  interest  yourselves 
in  this  or  that  part  of  the  visual  field,  unconsciously  your 
eyes  move  a  little  in  that  direction.  This  not  only  brings 
new  matter  within  range,  but  freshens  the  retina  as  well, 
by  changing  the  position  of  all  its  letter-images.  It  is 
difficult  for  an  unpracticed  observer  to  prevent  such 
wandering  of  the  eye;  and  even  the  most  thoroughly 
trained  observer  cannot  prevent  a  slight  fluctuation  of  the 
fixation,  which  seems  to  occur  almost  constantly.  We  see 
an  accentuation  of  this  normal  healthy  condition  in  per- 
sons who  are  troubled  with  nystagmus,  an  affection  of 
the  eye  characterized  by  a  slight  but  plainly  visible  and 
constant  change  of  fixation  point,  the  patient  being  quite 
unconscious  of  the  movement  and  supposing  that  he  keeps 
his  eye  steadily  fixated  as  he  looks. 

The  range  of  clear  seeing  about  the  fixation  point  is 
really  a  little  greater  than  as  given  above.  The  retina  is 
very  quickly  fatigued  in  maintaining  a  fixed  stare  for  even 
a  moment.  The  glance  of  the  first  instant  shows  the 
largest  area,  the  border  letters  immediately  growing  in- 
distinct before  we  have  had  time  to  make  them  out  or 
repeat  their  names  if  recognized.  In  actual  reading,  as 


54  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

we  shall  see,  the  meaning  or  context  fixes  them  before 
they  fade. 

It  was  found  by  Cattell,  Goldscheider  and  Miiller, 
Quantz,  and  various  other  experimenters,  that  when 
printed  matter  was  exposed  to  the  eye  for  a  very  short 
time,  about  one  one-hundredth  of  a  second,  more  could  be 
read,  or  the  same  amount  could  be  read  more  easily,  than 
when  the  exposure  was  longer.  Of  course  in  such  an 
exposure  the  retinal  image  remains  for  some  time  after 
the  exposure  ceases,  just  as  you  see  the  incandescent  light 
after  you  have  turned  off  the  current.  I  proceeded  to 
measure,  with  as  much  care  as  possible,  the  amount  of 
printed  matter  that  can  be  read  at  a  single  pause  of  the 
eye;  and  in  doing  so,  relying  on  the  experience  of  the 
investigators  mentioned,  I  made  a  clear  exposure  of 
the  printed  lines  for  the  slightly  longer  period  of  one 
sixty-sixth  of  a  second. 

In  actual  reading,  we  largely  disregard  the  lines  above 
and  below  the  one  that  is  at  the  moment  being  read ;  and 
as  far  as  the  eye  is  concerned  the  procedure  is  a  matter  a* 
taking  a  succession  of  from  three  to  five  quick  peeps  at  as 
many  places  in  the  line.  How  much  of  the  line  can  be 
read  at  a  single  peep  of  this  kind?  I  carried  through  a 
series  of  experiments  in  which  just  such  peeps  were  given, 
along  lines  of  printed  matter  similar  to  those  shown  in 
Figure  3,  taken  from  the  American  Journal  of  Psychology. 
The  printed  lines  were  pasted  on  strips  of  cardboard  and 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  55 

were  carefully  joined  from  end  to  end  so  as  to  form,  on 
each  card,  a  continuous  line  of  print.  The  exposures 
were  made  with  the  Cattell  Fall  Apparatus,  an  instru- 
ment in  which  a  thin  steel  plate  containing  a  rectangular 
horizontal  cleft  is  arranged  to  fall  close  before  the  printed 
line,  the  latter  being  invisible  except  while  the  rectangular 
opening  in  the  plate  permitted  a  peep  at  the  line  in  passing. 
The  length  of  the  exposure  thus  depended  upon  the  height 
from  which  the  plate  had  fallen  before  the  cleft  reached 
the  printed  line,  and  could  be  regulated  accordingly. 

The  reader  looked  at  a  point  close  before  a  marked 
place  in  the  line,  two  seconds  before  the  plate  fell,  and 
thus  had  his  eye  fixed  on  this  known  point  in  the  line 
during  the  exposure.  The  lines  were  seen  at  the  usual 
reading  distance,  were  well  lighted,  and  the  reader  sat 
comfortably  in  a  quiet  room  of  the  laboratory. 

The  first  series  of  peeps  was  taken  at  intervals  of  1.75 
centimeters,  eleven  and  one-half  letter  spaces,  in  order  as 
one  would  read,  the  reader  saying  aloud  as  much  as  he 
could  see  after  each  exposure.  Then  the  intervals  were 
increased  to  2  centimeters,  2.25  centimeters,  and  so  on 
up  to  and  including  intervals  of  4  centimeters.  The 
reader  always  had  the  benefit  of  knowing  the  context  up 
to  the  section  about  to  be  exposed,  the  preceding  sections 
being  read  to  him  if  he  had  not  made  them  out. 

It  was  found  that  some  readers  could  read  continuously 
for  a  considerable  distance  when  the  peeps  were  taken  at 


56  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

intervals  of  2.5  centimeters,  sixteen  letter  spaces,  and 
not  repeated.  Of  four  readers  tested  three  were  able  to 
do  as  well  as  this,  except  for  occasional  failure  through 
inattention  or  the  special  conditions  of  the  experimenting. 

When  the  peeps  were  at  intervals  of  4  centimeters, 
or  separated  by  twenty-six  letter  spaces,  none  of  the  read- 
ers were  able  to  read  continuously  for  any  distance, 
although  all  but  one  at  one  time  or  another  read  phrases 
of  greater  length  than  this,  and  that  one  read  phrases  as 
long  as  3.7  centimeters. 

When  the  peeps  were  taken  here  and  there  in  new  matter 
without  giving  the  preceding  context,  it  was  found,  to  my 
surprise,  that  a  little  more  was  rea,d,  on  an  average,  than 
when  the  context  was  known.  With  preceding  context 
known,  considerably  more  was  read  to  the  left  than  to  the 
right  of  the  fixation  point,  on  an  average.  Without  the 
context  a  little  more  was  read  to  the  right,  although  in 
neither  case  did  this  hold  for  all  the  readers. 

The  average  extent  of  matter  read  per  exposure  was  of 
course  much  less  than  the  amounts  stated  above.  One 
reader  read  an  average  of  ten  letter  spaces,  another  fifteen, 
a  third  eleven,  and  a  fourth,  with  a  curiously  limited  range 
of  distinct  vision,  averaged  but  five,  —  the  average  read- 
ing being  ten  letter  spaces  for  these  four  readers,  from 
many  hundreds  of  exposures.  If  we  include  in  our 
average  the  cases  in  which  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  a 
section  were  correctly  read  but  some  intermediate  part 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING  57 

was  lost,  the  average  extent  was  eleven  and  one-fourth 
letter  spaces. 

Comparing  the  average  amounts  thus  read  in  these 
peeps  at  the  line  with  the  average  amounts  read  at  the 
reading  pauses  in  actual  reading,  we  find  that  they  are 
nearly  the  same,  two  representative  readers  being  found 
to  cover  about  ten  letter  spaces  per  reading  pause,  on  an 
average,  when  reading  similar  lines. 

However,  a  comparison  of  averages  has  but  a  partial 
value,  for  the  actual  amounts  read  at  each  peep  at  the  line 
or  hi  each  pause  in  ordinary  reading  varies  very  much 
from  the  average.  For  instance,  in  actual  reading  it 
was  found  that  in  rare  cases  two  pauses  sufficed  for  the 
reading  of  a  whole  Journal  line  (Fig.  3).  The  exposure 
experiments  cited  above  show  that  in  similarly  rare  in- 
stances each  reader,  even  the  one  with  the  much  limited 
average  range,  was  able  to  read  correctly  nearly  or  quite  the 
half  of  such  a  line  at  a  single  peep.  The  readers  stated, 
too,  that  they  actually  saw  the  whole  extent  thus  read  at 
one  exposure  without  conscious  guessing  or  estimating. 
Some  of  these  longest  readings  are  given  on  page  59. 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that  the  reader's  eye  is  usually 
capable  of  taking  care  of  as  much  as  nearly  half  a  line  of 
the  length  and  type  used  in  our  experiments,  provided 
conditions  are  favorable.  The  fact  that  much  less  was 
read  at  most  of  the  exposures  was  due  to  causes  some  of 
which  can  best  be  stated  in  our  later  discussion.  It  was, 


58          THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

of  course,  inevitable  that  sometimes  the  reader's  attention 
would  wander  at  the  moment  of  the  exposure,  and  then 
little  or  nothing  would  be  read.  Again,  parts  of  the  line 
which  were  seen  clearly  for  an  instant  would  be  forgotten 
before  they  could  fix  themselves  in  mind  sufficiently  to 
be  reproduced.  Then  again,  the  amount  that  could  be 
read  varied  very  greatly  with  the  character  of  the  matter 
exposed.  In  general,  the  more  the  word  groups  resem- 
bled isolated  words,  as  when  divided  by  punctuation  marks, 
the  less  easily  they  were  read.  Prepositional  phrases,  sub- 
stantives with  a  series  of  modifying  adjectives  or  with  a 
closely  linked  phrase  modifier,  and  series  of  any  kind  which 
had  a  rhythmic  swing,  were  preferred.  Certain  words,  usu- 
ally rather  unfamiliar  ones,  presented  peculiar  difficulties. 
It  seemed  almost  impossible  to  bring  about  a  recognition 
of  them  by  repeated  exposures  when  the  reader  failed  to  rec- 
ognize them  at  first.  "  Titillation"  was  exposed  ten  times 
successively  before  recognition  had  proceeded  so  far  as  to 
call  it  "tililation."  All  the  readers  had  difficulty  with  this 
word.  The  letters  would  be  clearly  seen,  but  apparently 
could  not  be  remembered  long  enough  to  enable  the  reader 
to  construct  the  word.  Raison  d'etre  caused  similar  trouble. 
It  might  be  supposed  that  in  a  momentary  peep  at  a 
line  of  print  approximately  as  much  would  be  read  on  one 
side  of  the  fixation  point  as  on  the  other,  but  this  is  by  no 
means  the  case.  The  averages,  it  is  true,  do  not  show  great 
differences,  but  it  is  very  different  with  the  results  of 


READER  B 

Right 

Left 

Right 

25 

5 

0 

19 

12 

6 

10 

13 

18 

0 

24 

0 

15 

9 

15 

13 

14 

13 

4 

18 

4 

8 

10 

8 

THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  59 

particular  exposures.  The  following  table  shows  the  ex- 
tent in  millimeters  read  on  each  side  of  the  fixation  point 
by  two  readers  in  consecutive  peeps  at  the  line :  — 

READER  A 
Left 

20 

7 

17 
o 

9 

2 

17 
10 

FIG.  8 

Some  of  the  longer  readings  by  various  readers  in  these 
experiments  are  given  below,  with  the  fixation  points 
marked :  — 

Condition  of  consciousness 
by  a  brightly  colored 

These  muscular  contraction 
Condition  of  consciousness 
So  difficult  is.' the 

of  the  relevant  ones 
the  whole  body 

but  also  the  movements 
The  whole  body  converges 

by  a  brightly  colored  object 
typical  form,  known  as 
are  not  of  equal  value 
these  muscular  contractions 
FIG  9 


6O          THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  almost  every  case  in 
which  a  large  amount  is  read,  far  more  is  read  to  the 
right  of  the  fixation  point  than  to  the  left.  We  can  hardly 
explain  this  by  attributing  it  to  an  involuntary  wandering 
of  the  eye's  fixation  toward  the  right.  No  tendency  to 
wander  to  the  right  rather  than  to  the  left  has  been  noted 
in  other  experiments,  and  there  is  much  reason  to  think 
that  the  fixation  point  did  not  vary  more  than  a  letter 
space  or  two  at  most,  except  perhaps  very  rarely.  One 
of  the  readers  who  is  thoroughly  practiced  in  such  matters 
constantly  stated  the  letter  or  space  which  he  supposed 
he  had  fixated ;  and  in  practically  all  cases  his  statement 
was  correct.  Two  of  the  other  readers  had  had  a  fair 
amount  of  laboratory  practice  and  exercised  all  possible 
care  in  preserving  a  constant  fixation.  The  fourth,  a 
graduate  student  in  mathematics,  was  at  least  as  careful 
as  the  others. 

The  conditions,  such  as  close  grammatical  connection, 
etc.,  mentioned  earlier  as  making  for  larger  total  readings, 
tend  similarly  to  give  larger  readings  to  one  or  another  side 
of  the  fixation  point,  as  they  occur  there.  Then,  too,  the 
attention  is  by  no  means  always  directed  to  the  same  point 
as  the  eye's  fixation,  and  there  may  then  occur  a  greater 
readiness  for  dealing  with  matter  seen  at  the  right  or  left. 

In  the  case  of  the  larger  readings  in  which  so  much  more 
is  read  at  the  right  than  at  the  left,  this  is  probably  largely 
due  to  the  tendency  of  our  words,  as  of  all  mental  contents, 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  6l 

to  call  up  or  to  facilitate  the  perception  of  those  associates 
which  have  habitually  succeeded  rather  than  preceded 
them.  The  words  far  at  the  right,  although  dimly  seen, 
are  helped  into  consciousness  and  preserved  in  memory 
by  associative  links  from  those  that  are  clearly  seen. 
Then,  too,  the  latter  half  of  a  long  word  seen  far  at  the  left 
is  not  apt  to  suggest  the  first  half,  and  the  whole  word  is 
lost.  The  first  half  of  a  long  word  far  at  the  right,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  apt  to  suggest  the  whole  word,  both  be- 
cause the  flow  of  association  has  been  in  that  direction  and 
because  the  first  half  of  a  word  is  much  the  more  important 
for  the  word's  recognition,  as  we  shall  see  later. 

The  maximum  amount  which  can  be  read  during  a  read- 
ing pause  has  been  measured  by  various  other  experi- 
menters, with  fairly  congruent  results.  Erdmann  and 
Dodge  found  that  a  German  reader,  in  a  single  exposure 
lasting  one-tenth  of  a  second,  read  correctly  sentences  con- 
sisting of  from  four  to  six  words  of  two  to  ten  letters  each, 
and  occasionally  recognized  a  simple  word  even  at  the  end 
of  a  sentence  of  seven  words,  containing  twenty-six  letters. 
The  middle  of  the  sentence  was  fixated  in  all  cases.  The 
type  was  larger  than  that  used  in  the  writer's  experiments, 
and  the  other  conditions  somewhat  different. 

Messmer,  experimenting  at  the  University  of  Zurich, 
found  that  most  of  his  readers  could  read  nearly  as  much  as 
this,  in  certain  cases.  But  like  the  writer,  he  found  certain 
readers  with  a  curiously  limited  reading  range. 


62  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

Cattell  found  one  reader  who  could  read  as  much  as 
seven  words  at  a  single  exposure,  when  the  words  composed 
a  sentence  and  were  given  in  two  lines.  His  other  readers, 
however,  were  usually  limited  to  four  words.  Of  course  all 
these  results  show  only  the  maximal  amounts  which  can 
be  perceived  at  a  glance,  corresponding  roughly  to  what 
is  read  in  a  reading  pause  when  pauses  are  least  frequent. 
We  have  seen  that  the  eye  usually  makes  pauses  so  fre- 
quently as  to  keep  well  within  this  maximum,  the  average 
amount  covered  per  reading  pause  approximating  the 
average  amount  read  in  the  momentary  exposure  tests. 

My  readers  will  doubtless  wonder  that  so  much  of 
sense  matter  can  be  read  at  a  single  glance  or  pause,  when 
the  particular  letters  can  be  made  out  only,  as  we  have 
seen,  within  a  limited  radius  about  the  fixation  point.  It 
is  very  likely,  as  I  have  suggested,  that  one  can  really 
make  out  letters  somewhat  farther  from  the  fixation  point 
than  the  Erdmann  and  Dodge  experiment  indicates.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  words  of  sentences  are  read  at  a 
distance  from  the  fixation  point  at  which  letters  are  no 
longer  recognizable.  Similarly,  Erdmann  and  Dodge 
found  that  words  could  be  read  at  a  distance  from  the 
reader  which  made  the  constituent  letters  unrecognizable 
when  presented  singly.  Yet  in  many  of  these  cases 
the  reader  states  that  he  sees  clearly  all  letters  of  the 
words  or  sentences  read ;  and  in  my  own  experience,  as 
also  for  Erdmann  and  Dodge,  the  letters  of  words  seen 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  63 

far  from  the  fixation  point  seem  about  as  distinct  as  the 
others.  Nevertheless  it  seems  certain  that  in  the  longer 
readings  the  parts  most  distant  from  the  fixation  point 
are  not  clearly  seen  except  with  the  mind's  eye;  they 
are  filled  in  mentally  by  suggestion  from  what  can 
actually  be  seen,  somewhat  as  we  recognize  a  friend  from 
a  glimpse  of  his  hat  and  cane  or  of  his  bowed  form.  Not 
only  are  words  thus  recognized  when  letters  can  no  longer 
be  made  out,  but  Erdmann  and  Dodge  found  that  even 
very  familiar  short  sentences  were  sometimes  recognized 
as  wholes  under  conditions  which  prevented  recognition 
of  their  constituent  words.  Careful  distinction  will  have 
to  be  made,  therefore,  between  what  is  actually  "seen" 
during  a  reading  pause,  and  what  is  mentally  supplied, 
and  we  must  review  the  experiments  made  to  determine  the 
reading  range  for  meaningless  letters,  words,  etc.,  with 
the  suggestions  which  these  furnish  for  an  explanation  of 
the  apperceptive  filling  in  which  occurs  in  reading. 

When  a  series  of  letters  in  nonsense  arrangement  is 
momentarily  exposed  to  a  reader,  the  exposure  suffices, 
according  to  Erdmann  and  Dodge,  for  the  naming  of  but 
four  or  five  letters,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  although  as 
many  as  six  or  seven  letters  may,  in  exceptional  instances, 
be  read.  Usually,  when  the  series  consists  of  six  or  seven 
letters,  the  first  and  last  letters  are  clearly  perceived, 
showing  that  the  eye  can  recognize  single  letters  at  least  as 
far  into  the  periphery  as  this.  The  intervening  letters  were 


64  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

possibly  recognized,  but  failed  to  persist  in  memory  until 
their  names  could  be  stated. 

Erdmann  and  Dodge  found  that  while  but  four  or  five 
nonsense  letters  could  regularly  be  read  at  a  single  ex- 
posure, words  consisting  in  the  aggregate  of  four  or  five 
times  as  many  letters  were  read  under  similar  conditions. 
Their  readers  recognized,  at  a  glance  which  lasted  but  one- 
tenth  of  a  second,  words  having  as  many  as  twenty-two 
letters,  hi  one  instance,  and  twenty,  nineteen,  eighteen, 
seventeen,  etc.,  letters  in  other  trials  by  the  various  readers. 
They  believe,  however,  that  for  the  words,  as  for  the 
nonsense  letters,  only  an  extent  of  six  to  seven  letters 
is  clearly  perceived,  although  their  readers  believed  that 
the  letters  of  the  words  were  seen,  as  letters,  over  three 
times  this  extent  of  space.  It  was  found,  too,  that  while 
nonsense  words  gave  readings  that  were  three  or  four  times 
as  large  as  readings  from  nonsense  letters,  the  readings 
were  still  uniformly  less  than  when  the  words  were 
combined  to  form  sentences. 

Zeitler,  experimenting  at  the  University  of  Leipsic, 
found  that  the  most  difficult  reading  was  of  consonants  in 
nonsense  arrangement,  such  as  v  c  p  }  n  g  I  w.  Of  these, 
four  to  seven  were  read  at  an  exposure,  while  with  vowels 
interspersed  from'  five  to  eight  could  be  read.  A  series 
of  familiar  syllables  joined  continuously,  as  lencurbilber , 
losverkungwei,  was  next  easier  to  read,  six  to  ten  letters 
being  read  at  a  glance.  Progressively  larger  readings 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OP  READING  65 

were  obtained  from  series  of  unfamiliar  words,  familiar 
words,  sentences,  and  familiar  expressions  or  proverbs. 
Sentences  consisting  of  four  or  five  short  words,  with  a 
total  of  twenty  to  thirty  letters,  were  readily  read.  Single 
words  having  as  many  as  nineteen  to  twenty-five  letters 
each,  as  Bewusstseinszustand  and  Aujmerksamkeitsschivan- 
kung,  were  read  at  a  first  glance  of  one  one-hundredth 
second. 

Evidently,  then,  the  amount  that  can  be  read  durii 
a  reading  pause  varies  greatly  with  the  nature  of 
reading  matter.  It  may  seem  strange  to  some  that  thJ 
should  be  so,  that  the  amount  we  see  at  a  glance  should 
depend  upon  whether  the  line  makes  sense,  whether  it  is 
composed  of  sentences,  nonsense  words,  nonsense  sylla- 
bles, vowels,  consonants,  or  what  not.  Let  us  determine 
first  what  the  limiting  factors  may  be  on  the  side  of 
eye  structure  and  function,  and  later  examine  the  psychic 
factors. 

In  looking  at  a  line  of  print,  as  at  any  object,  an  image 
of  the  line  is  formed  upon  the  retina  somewhat  as  is  the 
image  which  we  can  see  upon  the  ground  glass  of  our 
camera  when  the  focusing  has  been  done  properly.  The 
image  is  inverted,  of  course,  in  both  cases,  and  the  mind  at 
the  outset  must  interpret  the  picture  as  representing  a 
printed  line  that  is  "right  side  up"  and  "right  side  to." 
But  let  us  examine  further  the  nature  of  this  inverted 
picture.  We  know  that  the  rods  and  cones,  which  alone 


66  THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING 

are  sensitive  to  the  light  impression,  are  less  and  less  abun- 
dant from  the  central  fovea  outward  toward  the  periphery 
of  the  retina,  and  that  the  distinctness  of  the  retinal  image 
falls  off  rapidly,  accordingly,  as  we  go  from  the  center. 
The  visual  field  corresponds,  therefore,  as  Helmholtz  says 
hi  his  " Physiologische  Optik"  (p.  87),  "to  a  drawing  in 
which,  indeed,  the  most  important  part  of  the  whole  is 
carefully  executed  but  the  surrounding  parts  only  sketched, 
and  sketched  the  more  roughly  the  farther  they  are  from 
the  main  point." 

The  little  depression  in  the  retina,  called  the  fovea 
centralis,  in  which  the  cones  are  closely  packed  together 
and  in  which,  accordingly,  the  retinal  picture  is  complete 
even  in  its  smaller  details,  is  only  about  one-fifth  of  a 
millimeter  in  diameter.  It  thus  includes  not  more  than 
perhaps  three-fourths  of  a  degree  of  the  retinal  image,  cor- 
responding of  course  only  to  this  small  extent  of  arc  on 
the  printed  line,  about  three  letter  spaces  at  the  ordinary 
reading  distance  and  with  this  type.  The  macula  lutea, 
or  "yellow  spot,"  in  which  the  fovea  lies,  is  itself  not  more 
than  about  three  millimeters  in  horizontal  diameter,  in- 
cluding thus  about  eleven  and  one-fourth  degrees  of  the 
retinal  image,  corresponding  to  about  6.3  centimeters 
or  a  little  more  than  six  words  on  this  page,  at  the  ordinary 
reading  distance. 

As  we  leave  the  fovea  there  is  a  marked  decrease  in  the 
distinctness  of  the  image,  a  gradual  blurring  and  losing 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  67 

of  details,  due  to  the  fast-diminishing  numbers  of  sensi- 
tive retinal  elements.  Only  the  larger  and  larger  figures 
of  the  picture  appear  as  we  go  farther,  and  finally  only 
the  most  general  outlines  of  even  the  forms  that  are  of  con- 
siderable size  are  evident  in  the  extreme  outer  parts.  It  is 
somewhat  as  though  our  camera  plate  were  comparatively 
perfect  within  a  very  small  circle  at  the  center,  but  were 
perforated  from  this  outward  to  form  a  sensitive  netting 
having  larger  and  larger  meshes  toward  the  edges  of  the 
plate.  A  print  from  such  a  negative  would  give  some 
suggestion  of  the  character  of  the  retinal  picture,  and 
would  be  called  exceedingly  defective  as  a  photograph. 

It  will  be  readily  understood,  then,  that,  while  for  a 
space  of  six  or  eight  letters  the  single  letters  can  be  made  out 
independently  of  each  other,  with  perhaps  the  dots  and 
small  marks  in  most  of  them,  the  small  marks  must  in- 
evitably disappear  as  we  go  farther  from  the  fixation  point  ; 
the  small  letters  must  gradually  disappear  except  as  their 
presence  is  suggested  by  what  clews  remain  in  the  rough 
outline;  later  even  the  large  letters  and  all  but  the  most 
general  outlines  of  words  must  be,  in  part  at  least,  inferred 
from  such  clews  of  context,  etc.,  as  are  to  be  had. 

So  it  is  clear  that  the  larger  the  amount  read  cfurjng 
a  reading  jDause,  the.  more  ineyi^bly_^mst  the -reading- be 

by  suggestion  and  inference  from  clews  of  whatsoever  kind, 
•<____  _  .  •  '-~ 

internal  or  external.     In  reading,  the  deficient  picture  is 

filled  in,  retouched,  by  the  mind,  and  the  page  is  thus 


68  THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

made  to  present  the  familiar  appearance  of  completeness 
in  its  details  which  we  suppose  to  exist  in  the  actual  page. 
The  defective  retinal  picture,  taken  in  connection  with  all 
the  other  clews  available  to  consciousness  at  the  moment, 
means  such  a  page,  and  we  project  this  meaning  outward, 
just  as  we  fill  in  mentally  the  gap  in  the  visual  field  left 
by  the  blind  spot. 

Two  facts  that  especially  concern  us  are  very  evident 
from  what  has  been  said :  First,  reading  may  and  must 
go  on  by  other  means  than  the  recognition  of  letters; 
second,  the  amount  that  can  be  read  at  a  reading  pause, 
and  consequently  the  number  of  necessary  pauses  and 
movements  per  line  and  page,  will  vary  with  the  nature  of 
the  matter  read,  with  the  associative  connections  existing 
between  the  letters,  words,  etc.,  and  with  the  reader's 
familiarity  with  what  is  read,  the  latter  enabling  any  part 
that  may  be  clear  to  help  into  consciousness  other  parts 
that  are  indistinct. 

Turning  now  to  the  psychic  side,  we  find  certain  further 
limitations  upon  the  amount  that  can  be  read  during  a 
reading  pause.  And  first,  the  recognition  of  any  partic- 
ular object  as  such  necessitates  a  unitary  focusing  of  con- 
sciousness, practically  an  act  of  the  attention.  But  it  is 
a  well-known  fact  that  but  very  few  acts  of  the  attention 
can  take  place  simultaneously  or  within  the  narrow  limits 
of  a  reading  pause.  Let  my  readers  try  taking  a  momen- 
tary glance  at  a  number  of  distinct  objects,  all  of  which 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  69 

are  in  plain  view  at  once,  as  at  a  group  of  pictures,  the  faces 
in  a  passing  car,  or  the  jumble  of  things  in  a  work-basket. 
You  will  realize  after  a  few  trials  that  the  number  of 
separate  recognition  acts  per  moment  has  rather  narrow 
limits,  and  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  how  many  objects 
can  be  imaged  simultaneously  on  the  retina. 

The  extent  of  this  span  or  range  of  the  attention  or 
apperception  has  been  variously  stated  by  those  who  have 
attempted  to  measure  it,  but  is  usually  found  to  include 
not  more  than  four  or  five  unrelated  impressions.  To 
attempt  to  distribute  the  attention  over  more  than  about 
this  number  is  only  successful  when  we  can  in  some  way 
unitize  them,  when  we  can  somehow  relate  them  in  our 
thought  so  that  we  are  conscious  of  them  in  groups  or  as 
a  whole  having  a  unitary  meaning.  However,  when 
groups  of  objects,  no  matter  how  complex  in  their  details, 
have  these  details  firmly  organized  into  a  unitary  whole 
and  are  thought  of  as  wholes,  then  about  as  many  of  these 
wholes  can  be  attended  to  simultaneously  as  if  they  were 
simple  objects.  Accordingly  we  find  that  readers  recog- 
nize, apparently  in  one  pulse  of  attention,  four  or  five 
unrelated  marks  of  different  shapes,  four  or  five  letters 
in  which  such  marks  are  unitarily  combined,  or  four  or 
five  unrelated  words  which  are  still  higher  unitary  com- 
plexes of  these  letters.  Even  two  or  three  short  sentences 
which  had  come  to  be  thought  as  units  might  possibly 
be  recognized  hi  one  pulse  of  attention.  Of  course  it 


70  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

may  be  said,  and  it  is  doubtless  in  some  measure  true, 
that  a  wandering  of  the  attention  may  occur  during  a 
reading  pause,  that  the  recognitions  that  occur  are  not 
all  simultaneous  but  are  in  some  measure  successive. 
This  will  be  considered  presently.  But  all  admit  that  not 
more  than  a  very  few  acts  of  recognition  can  occur,  whether 
simultaneously  or  successively,  within  the  limits  of  a 
reading  pause,  and  this  is  our  main  concern  here. 

Again,  when  we  consider  that  the  attention  must  con- 
cern itself  partly  with  the  meaning,  with  the  images,  feel- 
ings, and  conscious  states  generally  which  are  aroused 
by  the  reading  symbols,  and  in  many  cases  with  the  artic- 
ulation of  words,  we  begin  to  wonder  that  the  mind  can 
deal  with  so  much  data,  rather  than  with  so  little,  in  any 
given  moment  of  our  reading. 

To  summarize  then,  we  are  limited,  in  the  amount  that 
can  be  read  during  a  reading  pause,  by  the  inadequacy 
of  the  retinal  structure,  by  our  inability  to  attend  to  more 
than  a  few  parts  of  the  total  picture  presented,  and  by 
the  necessity  of  our  attention's  concerning  itself  with  in- 
terpretations. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE    EXPERIMENTAL    STUDIES    UPON    VISUAL    PERCEPTION 
IN  READING 

WE  must  next  consider  the  mental  processes  concerned 
in  perceiving  what  is  before  us  on  the  page,  and  the  means 
by  which  the  mind  takes  note  of  what  is  there  at  such  a 
very  rapid  rate.  This  raises,  of  course,  the  time-honored 
question  of  whether  we  read  by  letters  or  by  words ;  but  we 
shall  find  that  much  more  is  involved  than  the  settlement 
of  this  somewhat  scholastic  query. 

The  fact  that  during  a  reading  pause  one  may  read  as 
much  as  even  twenty  to  thirty  letters  when  combined  in 
sense  matter,  and  that  one  averages  usually  as  much  as 
ten  letters,  suggests,  as  I  have  indicated,  that  the  reading 
must  go  on  by  some  other  means  than  the  recognition  of 
letter  after  letter  as  was  once  supposed.  This  old  and 
deeply  rooted  assumption  was  founded  partly  on  the 
general  belief  that  the  eye  passed  from  letter  to  letter  along 
the  line,  the  recognitions  following  the  fixation  point  suc- 
cessively. The  letter-recognition  theory  was  strengthened, 
too,  by  certain  data  furnished  by  aphasic  patients,  data 
which  were  interpreted  by  specialists  in  speech  defects  into 
a  theory  of  reading  by  letters  which  it  is  impossible  to 

7' 


72  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

hold  in  the  face  of  what  we  now  know  about  the  eye's 
actual  movements  in  reading.  The  eye  being  still  while 
most  of  the  data  is  received  from  the  page,  it  is  perfectly 
certain  that  stimulations  from  letters  in  various  parts  of 
the  section  before  the  reader  affect  him  simultaneously, 
and  that  there  cannot  be  separate  acts  of  recognition  for 
each  letter. 

Professor  Cattell  early  concluded,  as  a  result  of  his  ex- 
periments at  Leipsic  upon  the  amount  which  could  be 
read  in  single  short  exposures,  that  we  read  in  word-wholes 
and  even,  sometimes,  in  phrase  or  sentence  wholes,  and 
not  by  letters.  This  was  evidently  before  the  nature  of  the 
eye's  movement  was  known  to  him,  although  the  discon- 
tinuous character  of  the  movement  had  already  been 
determined  by  Professor  Javal  and  his  pupils.  Cattell 
found  that  when  single  words  were  momentarily  exposed, 
they  were  recognized  as  quickly  as  single  letters,  and 
indeed  that  it  took  longer  to  name  letters  than  to  name 
whole  words,  the  exposures  being  made  under  conditions 
in  which  the  times  could  be  accurately  measured. 

It  was  found  that  when  sentences  or  phrases  were  ex- 
posed, they  were  either  grasped  as  wholes  or  else  scarcely 
any  of  the  words  or  letters  were  read.  This  observation 
was  strikingly  confirmed  in  the  writer's  experiments  in 
which  sentences  were  momentarily  exposed.  Rarely 
were  single  letters  read,  even  as  forming  the  beginning 
or  ends  of  words  that  were  but  partially  recognized. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  73 

The  readings  were  of  whole  words,  and  almost  always 
of  words  connected  in  some  sense  fashion.  The  words 
appear  very  distinct,  even,  as  Cattell  says,  "when  the  ob- 
server constructs  an  imaginary  sentence  from  the  traces 
he  has  taken  up."  Professor  Cattell  also  found  that  the 
shortest  exposure  which  would  permit  the  recognition  of 
single  small  letters  and  capitals  sufficed  also  for  the  rec- 
ognition of  short  words,  and  that  long  words  needed 
but  one  one-thousandth  of  a  second  more.  The  time 
needed  for  naming  a  word  was  considerably  less  than 
for  naming  a  letter,  and  the  time  needed  simply  for 
recognition  without  naming  was  "only  slightly  longer 
for  a  word  than  for  a  single  letter.  We,  therefore,"  he 
adds,  "perceive  the  word  as  a  whole."  Again,  he  found 
that  when  unrelated  letters  or  words  were  read  aloud 
as  fast  as  possible,  the  reading  was  about  twice  as  slow 
as  when  the  letters  or  words  were  combined  into  words 
or  sentences  respectively;  this  indicating  that  hi  the 
latter  cases  the  reading  was  in  larger  wholes  than  letters. 
Erdmann  and  Dodge  argue  strongly  for  the  theory  of 
perception  in  word-wholes,  on  the  basis  of  numerous  and 
varied  experiments.  The  length  of  the  word  and  its  char- 
acteristic general  form  as  a  visual  whole  seem  to  them  to 
be  the  main  means  by  which  it  is  recognized  by  the  prac- 
ticed readers.  They  base  their  argument  mainly  upon 
the  following  facts :  First,  words  are  recognized  when  lying 
too  far  from  the  fixation  point  to  permit  recognition  of 


74  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

their  component  letters.  Second,  words  are  recognized 
when  formed  of  letters  so  small  that  the  letters  could  not 
be  singly  identified.  Third,  in  about  half  the  cases  tried, 
words  were  recognized  at  distances  at  which  the  letters, 
when  exposed  singly,  could  not  be  recognized.  Fourth, 
in  the  latter  experiment  the  words  were  more  readily 
recognized  when  they  were  long,  or  of  optically  char- 
acteristic form.  Fifth,  when  twenty-six  selected  words 
were  learned  thoroughly  in  a  fixed  order,  as  the  alphabet 
is  known,  and  then  exposed  beyond  the  distance  at  which 
the  letters  could  be  recognized,  the  words  could  be  dis- 
tinguished and  recognized  in  almost  every  instance. 
Sixth,  words  of  four  letters  are  named  somewhat  more 
quickly  than  single  letters,  and  words  of  eight,  twelve, 
and  sixteen  letters  need  comparatively  little  more  time, 
the  longest  words  needing  only  about  one-fifth  more  time 
than  the  shortest. 

These  authors  point  out  that  it  is  not  the  constituent 
parts  of  any  given  form  that  make  it  recognizable,  but  it 
is  the  familiar  total  arrangement.  Thus  -  •  o  is  not 
recognized  as  5  nor  <  |  as  K,  although  the  constituent 

g 
n 

parts  are   presented.    The  arrangement  d    has    all    the 

a 
e 

r 

elements  of  a  familiar  word  and,  indeed,  in  their  usual 
order.  But  it  is  by  no  means  the  visual  form  recognized 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  7$ 

at  once  in  the  word  reading.  Why  should  not  a  familiar 
word-form  be  recognized  and  named  on  sight  just  as  a 
house  or  wall  is  recognized  and  named  ?  We  do  not,  in  the 
latter  cases,  take  account  of  the  constituent  stories  and 
bricks  ;  nor  of  all  the  sticks  and  limbs  and  leaves  in  recog- 
nizing a  particular  thicket  or  oak  tree.  The  arrangement, 
the  total  form,  is  the  main  thing,  whether  in  the  recognition 
of  letters,  numbers,  words,  or  objects  of  whatsoever  sort. 
One  may  always  analyze  the  whole  into  its  parts  and  recog- 
nize each  part  singly,  as  we  have  done  in  the  figures  above. 
But  we  do  not  do  this  in  actual  reading  any  more  than 
in  regarding  a  landscape. 

So  the  argument  runs,  and  much  more  might  be  said  for 
it.  We  shall  next  consider  another  view,  advanced  by 
Goldscheider  and  Miiller,  on  the  basis  of  experiments 
made  at  Berlin.  These  experimenters,  working  earlier 
than  Erdmann  and  Dodge,  found  first  that  when  a  group 
of  simple  unrelated  strokes  in  various  arrangements,  as 


was  exposed  for  one  one-hundredth  of   a  second,  only 
four  or   at   most   five   strokes  could    be   recognized   or 

NOTE.  The  cuts  and  quotations  from  Goldscheider  and  Miiller  are 
from  their  article  "  Zur  Phys.  und  Path,  des  Lesens,"  in  Zeitschrift  f. 
Klin.  Med.,  Bd.  XXIII,  p.  131  ff. 


76  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

described    and     reproduced.     When    simple    unrelated 
strokes  were  grouped  into  a  regular  symmetrical  form,  as 


although  the  whole  had  no  definite  meaning  and  was 
totally  new,  seven  strokes  could  be  similarly  "recognized" 
and  the  arrangement  given.  When  the  strokes  were 
combined  into  squares  and  a  group  of  the  squares  was 
exposed  in  varied  arrangements,  as 


DO 


the  form,  orientation,  and  relative  arrangement  of  two  or 
three  squares  could  be  told  at  a  glance,  although  this, 
of  course,  involved  locating  and  describing  eight  or  twelve 
strokes.  With  a  symmetrical  arrangement  and  similar 
orientation  of  the  squares,  as 


D 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  77 

the  whole  group  of  five  squares  could  be  reproduced  at 
the  first  glance,  although  this  involved  twenty  strokes. 

Similarly  with  semicircles,  ellipses,  etc.,  the  number 
that  could  be  recognized  and  correctly  reproduced,  at  a 
glance,  increased  regularly  with  their  arrangement  into 
forms  that  could  be  grasped  unitarily.  An  arrangement 
like 


was  easily  reproduced  so  far  as  the  general  form  was  con- 
cerned, but  to  state  how  each  particular  semicircle  faced 
was  very  difficult. 

From  the  constant  recurrence  of  various  geometrical 
forms,  in  the  world  of  things,  we  come  to  have  a  stock  of 
ideas  of  these  forms  all  ready  to  use,  ready  to  be  touched 
off  by  even  very  slight  cues  that  may  appear  in  any  visual 
complex.  This  aliveness  or  acute  apperception  for  total 
forms  makes  us  negligent  of  the  details  that  appear.  They 
are  too  numerous  to  be  attended  to,  and  can  come  to 
consciousness  with  less  expenditure  of  energy  as  parts  or 
aspects  of  the  total  upon  which  the  thought  is  mainly 
focused.  So  recognition  by  general  forms  rather  than  by 
particular  details  may  be  expected  and  will  occur  prefer- 
ably wherever  the  total  arrangement  has  often  recurred, 


78  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

and  where  attention  to  certain  details  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  determination  of 'the  recognition.  The 
general  form  repeats  itself  oftenest,  and  so  we  are  most 
ready  for  it.1 

Goldscheider  and  Muller  found  that  such  a  group  as 


had  to  be  exposed  seven  times  before  it  could  be  repro- 
duced, while  the  same  forms  arranged  into 


were  reproduced  at  the  first  or  second  glance.    So  when 

>    /    Vf 


was  exposed,  but  four  or  five  characters  could  be  per- 
ceived at  a  glance,  but  when  these  same  forms  appeared 
as 


1  NOTE.    The  theoretical  view  presented  in  this  paragraph  is  not 
necessarily  that  of  Goldscheider  and  Muller. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  79 

the  whole  was  recognized  at  the  fast  or  second  glance. 
The  habitual  association  of  the  parts  into  a  unity,  which 
makes  the  perception  facile  and  the  memory  after  the 
exposure  easy,  and  the  familiarity  of  the  total  form  as  an 
unanalyzed  whole,  work  together  as  factors  in  these  as  in 
all  such  recognitions. 

Goldscheider  and  Mtiller  went  on  to  expose  series  of 
nonsense  letters,  syllables,  words,  phrases,  etc.  They 
found  that  "an  optical  memory  image"  of  a  word  was 
readily  called  forth  by  an  incomplete  series  of  its  letters. 
Certain  letters  would  be  disregarded  when  present  in  the 
exposed  word,  or  might  be  omitted  and  the  recognition 
would  still  occur  readily.  The  letters  which  seemed  to 
be  especially  used  in  determining  the  recognition  of  any 
given  word  were  named  "determining  letters."  The 
others  were  named  "indifferent  letters."  The  places  of 
the  absent  or  disregarded  letters  would  be  filled  in  sub- 
jectively when  the  exposure  was  made,  sometimes  filled 
with  the  wrong  forms  even  though  the  right  letters  were 
actually  there.  Whether  wrong  or  right,  the  letters  thus 
supplied  were  apt  to  seem  as  distinct  on  the  page  as  did  the 
others,  and  these  authors  quote  with  approval  Professor 
Miinsterberg's  conclusion1  that  "reproduced  sensations 
under  favorable  conditions  cannot  be  distinguished  from 
sense  impressions."  Exposure  of  C  ntr  m  constantly 
sufficed  for  recognition  of  the  German  word  Centrum, 

1  "  Beitrage  zur  Experimentellen  Psychologic,"  H.  4,  s.  17  ff. 


80  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

but  ent  urn  did  not.  Klangbild  was  recognized  readily 
from  Kl  ngb  Id,  but  not  from  Ian  bild.  M  k  do  gave  Mi- 
kado, but  Mik  o,  of  the  same  word,  gave  only  Mikosch. 
Ch  tt  gave  Chariti  at  once,  and  other  such  familiar 
words  were  recognized  when  a  few  characteristic  letters 
were  given. 

To  the  determining  letter  class  belongs  the  first  letter  of 
a  word,  almost  always.  If  it  is  wanting,  the  recognition  is 
apt  to  fail,  especially  if  its  absence  breaks  up  an  initial 
diphthong.  Autor  was  never  recognized  from  utor. 
Here  the  wrong  sound  seemed  to  be  suggested  for  the  u, 
resulting  in  such  completions  as  tutor;  eweis  did  not 
give  B eweis  as  intended,  but  edelweiss;  weifel  did  not 
give  Zweifel,  but  Weibel;  ia  n  se  was  completed  to  Wann- 
see,  and  the  actual  word  Diagnose  could  not  be  made 
out.  If  the  determining  letters  are  left  out  of  a  word,  there 
is  left  an  "indifferent  word-form"  which  sometimes  per- 
mits a  great  number  of  different  completions. 

Goldscheider  and  Miiller  do  not  find  that  the  con- 
sonants are  the  determining  letters  as  against  the  vowels 
as  indifferent  letters,  as  some  suppose.  For  instance, 
Diagnose  was  recognized  with  greater  difficulty  when 
D  gn  se  was  presented  than  from  D  a  nose.  The  greater 
importance  of  the  vowels  in  such  a  case  may  be  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  vowels  give  the  clew  to  the  number  of 
syllables,  and  with  this  they  awaken  in  us  the  memory 
of  the  rhythm  and  the  accent.  Or  it  may  happen  that  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  8l 

vowel  sound  is  of  "determining  significance"  for  the  given 
word.  The  former  would  be  apt  to  occur  if  the  reader's 
inner  speech  habitually  went  on  in  motor  terms,  the  latter 
if  he  were  of  the  auditory  type.  The  consonants,  however, 
from  their  frequently  projecting  above  or  below  the  line, 
are  apt  to  contribute  more  than  the  vowels  to  the  char- 
acteristic form  of  the  word. 

The  kind  of  words  which  were  usually  suggested  by  the 
word  skeletons  presented  in  these  exposures  lead  Gold- 
scheider  and  Miiller  to  conclude  that  the  first  suggestion 
from  the  sight  of  the  determining  letters  is  the  sound  of 
these  letters,  and  that  these  sounds  call  forth  or  suggest, 
immediately,  the  sound  of  the  whole  word.  They  admit 
that  the  visual  perception  of  the  determining  letters  may 
sometimes  be  filled  out  at  once  with  the  remaining  visual 
forms,  and  the  word-sound  then  be  aroused  from  this  total 
visual  form.  But  this,  they  think,  occurs  but  seldom, 
and  is  a  roundabout  process. 

In  general,  these  experimenters  conclude  that  the  more 
unfamiliar  a  sequence  of  letters  may  be,  the  more  the 
perception  of  it  proceeds  by  letters.  With  increase  of  fa- 
miliarity, fewer  and  fewer  clews  suffice  to  touch  off  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  word  or  phrase,  the  tendency  being  toward 
reading  in  word- wholes.  So  reading  is  now  by  letters,  now 
by  groups  of  letters  or  by  syllables,  now  by  word-wholeSj 
all  in  the  same  sentence  sometimes,  or  even  in  the  same 
word,  as  the  reader  may  most  quickly  attain  his  purpose. 
o 


82  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

In  the  case  of  reading  by  word-wholes,  they  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  characteristic  form  of  the  word  is 
conditioned  by  certain  characteristic  letters,  namely,  the 
determining  letters. 

The  reading  of  the  blind,  in  the  opinion  of  these 
authors,  seems  to  illustrate  this  combination  of  methods 
of  perceiving  words.  A  practiced  reader  of  the  raised- 
letter  pages  goes  ahead  with  the  fingers  of  the  right  hand 
to  examine  the  general  outline  of  the  word,  while  a  finger 
of  the  left  hand  follows,  gliding  successively  over  the 
letters.  Ordinarily,  however,  only  a  part  of  the  letters 
are  examined,  while  the  finger  passes  over  the  others 
without  touching  the  points.  Intelligent  and  attentive 
blind  readers  state  that  they  thus  read  but  a  part  of  the 
letters  and  conjecture  the  rest. 

Zeitler,  experimenting  at  the  University  of  Leipsic, 
made  about  six  thousand  exposures  of  groups  of  letters, 
words,  sentences,  etc.,  usually  for  very  brief  intervals. 
By  making  the  exposures  very  short  he  thought  he  could 
best  determine  what  letters,  letter-groups,  etc.,  stand  out 
most  prominently  and  are  perceived  when  others  are  not. 
His  experiments  are  therefore  important  as  helping  to 
determine  what  parts  of  reading  matter  are  "determining" 
parts,  or  "dominating"  parts  as  Zeitler  prefers  to  call 
them. 

Zeitler  found  that  in  his  brief  exposures  certain  letters 
or  letter-groups  of  a  word,  and  indeed  certain  words  of 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  83 

exposed  sentences,  drew  the  attention  to  themselves  and 
were  apperceived.  The  apperception  of  these  domi- 
nating parts  or  complexes  is,  he  believes,  the  basis  for  the 
recognition  of  the  word  or  sentence.  These  apperceived 
parts  are  at  once  supplemented  by,  filled  out  with,  an 
inner  mental  contribution,  associates  that  belong  with 
the  parts  apperceived.  The  result  is  the  blending  of  the 
outwardly  given  apperceptions  with  the  inwardly  arising 
associates  into  a  total  "assimilation,"  which  constitutes 
the  recognition  of  the  word  or  sentence.  "The  word-form 
is  indeed  apparently  assimilated  as  a  whole,  secondarily; 
but  primarily,  it  is  apperceived  only  in  its  dominating 
constituent  parts."  Zeitler  admits,  however,  that  or- 
dinarily we  cannot  distinguish  these  two  processes  of 
apperception  and  assimilation.  His  very  short  exposures, 
varying  to  suit  the  reader,  ruled  out,  as  he  believed,  most  of 
the  associative  contribution,  and  caused  the  reader  to 
strain  his  attention  to  the  utmost  upon  the  objective  fac- 
tors, the  matter  actually  exposed. 

It  was  found  that  the  letters  projecting  above  and  below 
the  line  were  recognized  preferably.  The  vowels  and  small 
consonants  were  misread  most  often,  the  long  consonants 
least  often.  In  general,  "the  more  characteristically"  a 
letter  is  shaped,  the  more  clearly  is  it  recognized.  As  in 
the  visual  field  with  objects  generally  there  are  dominating 
points  and  lines  which  get  the  attention,  which  reflexly 
attract  the  eye,  and  over  which  the  eye  preferably  moves 


84  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

or  rests,  just  so  when  we  regard  words  and  sentences,  the 
corresponding  dominant  parts  here  are  these  character- 
istically formed  letters,  "over  whose  high  relief  the  eye 
springs  along,"  although  this  last  is  true  only  figura- 
tively, he  says,  as  the  eye  does  not  move  during  the 
exposure. 

As  examples  of  the  dominating  letters  may  be  cited  the 
following,  found  to  be  the  same  for  all  of  his  (five?) 
readers :  — 


Gold 

Old 

Ha'ut 

H    t 

Fliege 

F     Ig 

Woche 

W    ch  (ck) 

Streit 

St       t 

Minute 

M       t 

\ 

Cattell  had  already  found  that  the  different  letters  re- 
quired different  times  for  their  recognition,  and  that  they 
were  of  different  degrees  of  legibility.  His  observations 
here  have  a  certain  significant  relation  with  those  of  Zeit- 
ler.  It  will  be  noticed  that  in  the  above  examples  the 
large  letters  are  the  dominating  ones  throughout,  except 
in  the  characteristic  combination  ch. 

When  much  is  read  in  the  exposure  of  a  sense  passage, 
Zeitler  finds  that  certain  dominating  "  syllable  complexes," 
usually  those  which  contain  the  sense  of  the  words,  are 
apperceived  and  the  rest  is  associatively  supplied.  If 
quite  familiar  sentences  are  exposed,  there  are  dominating 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  85 

4 

words,  sometimes,  the  perception  of  which  suffices  for  the 
recognition  of  the  whole  sentence.  Alterations  in  the 
" indifferent"  words  of  the  sentences,  or  even  their  ab- 
sence, may  go  unnoticed.  The  sentence  is  "assimilated" 
just  the  same. 

This  experimenter  opposes  Goldscheider  and  Miiller's 
conclusion  that  the  perception  of  the  determining  or 
dominating  letters  arouses  first  the  sound  of  these  letters, 
the  word-sound  being  filled  out  associatively  from  these 
sounds.  Still,  some  of  Zeitler's  own  experiments  show 
that  this  occurs  sometimes.  Regularly,  however,  he 
thinks  that  the  dominating  complexes,  when  apperceived, 
are  filled  out  directly  into  the  visual  form  of  the  word  or 
sentence.  The  dominating  parts  may  be  silent  letters,  or 
letters  having  a  sound  that  is  very  different  when  heard 
singly  than  when  combined  in  the  given  word. 

The  conclusions  of  Cattell,  Erdmann  and  Dodge,  and 
others  as  to  perception  in  word-wholes  are  also  thought 
to  be  incorrect.  The  reading  stimulus,  when  one  looks 
momentarily  at  the  page,  is  ordinarily  not  the  whole  sen- 
tence or  the  whole  words  printed  there,  at  all.  Externally, 
it  is  true,  they  are  there  and  are  of  such  and  such 
total  form,  word-length,  etc.  But  the  real  stimulus  is  the 
series  of  dominating  letters  or  complexes.  It  is  these 
which  first  affect  consciousness  and  get  the  attention. 
It  is  these  that  are  directly  perceived. 

In  Zeitler's  opinion,  then,  word-length  and  total  form 


86  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

are  not  very  important  factors  in  the  recognition.  Foi 
instance,  when  the  words  in  the  left-hand  column  below 
were  briefly  exposed,  the  reader  was  uncertain  whether 
he  saw  the  one  or  the  other  of  the  words  on  the  right, 
although  they  are  markedly  different  in  length :  — 

Phantasie 
Phalanstere  or 

Phalanstere 

Skorpion 
Skioplikon  or 

Skioptikon 

Pygmae 
Pygmalion  or 

Pygmalion 

Such  readings  as  Leoparden  for 

Lepidodendron, 
Retoranda  for 
Ritardando, 
Epimenides  for 
Epaminondas, 
Polarstern  for 
Phalanstere, 
Agraphie  for 
Agoraphobic 

show  discrepancies  in  word-length  and,  quite  often,  hi 
total  form.    The  determining  letters,  however,  are  re- 
tained, only  the  indifferent  letters  being  changed,  omitted, 
or  inserted. 
That  the  total  word-form  is  not  very  fixed  and  rigid  to 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  87 

the  consciousness  is  indicated  by  the  inversions  and  per- 
mutations of  even  the  letters  that  are  dominant.    Thus, 

Farbe  was  read  Fabrik 

Meludie  (exposed  for  Melodie)  was  read  Medulla. 
Gefiidl  (Geftthl)  was  read  Gefilde. 

Kiilge  (Kiilpe)  was  read  Klage. 

Fniede  (Friede)  was  read  Feinde. 

Analomie  (Anatomic)  was  read  Anomalie. 

It  would  seem  to  Zeitler  that  in  the  first  perception  of 
the  dominant  parts  of  a  word  these  parts  are  not  seen  in 
any  very  fixed  spatial  arrangement,  but  are  later  put  in 
place  in  a  total  word-form  when  the  full  recognition  com- 
pletes itself  with  the  coming  of  the  associative  elements. 
At  first  "each  dominating  letter  has  a  certain  elbow-room 
in  a  space  within  which  it  can  be  changed  about 
with  its  neighbors."  There  they  hover,  oscillating  with 
the  play  of  processes,  until  they  become  "anchored" 
in  the  places  to  which  they  are  assigned  in  the  total  word- 
complex  when  this  is  once  formed.  "The  letters  are 
throughout  not  linked  so  fast  to  one  another  as  they  seem. 
The  sense  first  welds  them  together."  "The  mere  optical 
word-form  is  continually  inclined  to  fall  apart  into  its  ele- 
ments, is  held  together  only  by  the  framework  formed  by 
the  dominating  letters.  In  this  word-form  the  small  and 
unimportant  letters  can  be  changed  about  quite  irreg- 
ularly." "The  word-form  remains  uncertain  (labile), 


88  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

if  it  does  not  immediately  receive  its  signification.    First 
through  the  sense  is  the  letter-complex  established." 

Neither  does  Zeitler  find  that  the  perception  of  what 
is  read  during  a  reading  pause  occurs  simultaneously 
for  the  various  parts  of  the  section  read.  The  time 
of  such  a  pause,  very  considerable  as  compared  with  the 
short  times  used  in  his  exposure  experiments,  is  quite 
sufficient  to  permit  a  wandering  of  the  attention  over  what 
is  read,  and  he  finds  that  such  a  wandering  of  the  atten- 
tion actually  occurred  in  the  readings  of  his  observers. 
The  attention  is  upon  the  dominating  letters  or  complexes, 
and  wanders  from  one  to  another  until  all  are  apperceived. 
A  dominating  complex  may  consist  of  two  or  three  neigh- 
boring letters,  or  may  even  be  an  entire  short  word  in 
familiar  sentences.  In  any  case  it  seems  to  be  perceived 
simultaneously  over  its  various  parts.  Indeed,  Zeitler 
admits  that,  when  two  distinct  dominating  complexes 
occur  in  different  parts  of  a  word,  the  attention  may  in  cer- 
tain cases  divide  and  be  given  to  both  simultaneously. 
But  generally,  in  reading,  "we  arrange  the  dominating 
complexes  successively  one  after  another,  similarly  as  we  do 
the  letters  in  the  earliest  reading  by  letters.  The  progress 
of  the  reading  is  only  very  fast,  but  it  is  none  the  less 
successive.  With  ordinary  letter-after-letter  reading,  how- 
ever, this  has  nothing  to  do;  instead,  we  arrange  in  a 
series  one  after  the  other  the  dominating  letters  and 
important  complexes.  This  goes  on,  possibly,  in  a  kind 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING  8$ 

of  rhythmic  succession,  with  continued  variation  in  the 
rhythm." 

There  is  thus,  according  to  Zeitler,  a  "very  quick  succes- 
sion of  consciousness  processes  in  reading,"  which  indeed 
gives  one  the  "illusion"  of  reading  simultaneously  what 
is  seen  at  a  glance,  or  during  a  reading  pause.  This  il- 
lusion comes  from  long  practice  and  from  familiarity  with 
the  words.  But  with  less  familiar  words,  even  the  prac- 
ticed reader  may  establish  for  himself  that  the  "simultane- 
ous reading  exists  only  for  the  extent  of  a  dominating  com- 
plex." His  reference  Here  is  only  to  visual  perception  in 
reading,  and  he  remarks  that  the  inner  saying  of  what 
is  read  goes  on  successively,  sound  after  sound. 

The  following  examples  are  given  by  Zeitler  to  illustrate 
the  wandering  of  the  attention  which  occurred  when  these 
words  were  exposed  for  periods  of  from  one  tenth  to  one 
fifth  of  a  second,  approximating  the  time  of  a  reading 
pause.  The  strokes  under  the  words  indicate  the  impor- 
tant parts  of  the  word-form,  the  bent  arrows  show  the 
subjectively  noticed  course  of  the  attention.  All  his 
readers  seemed  to  agree  that  when  these  longer  times 
were  used,  the  readings  were  regularly  successive  and 
not  simultaneous. 

That  Cattell  did  not  note  any  wandering  of  the  attention 
and  considered  the  readings  to  be  simultaneous  is  due, 
Zeitler  supposes,  to  the  fact  that  Cattell's  exposures  lasted 
but  one  one-hundredth  of  a  second,  making  the  observa- 


90  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

tion  of  such  a  wandering  very  difficult.  Erdmann  and 
Dodge,  with  their  long  exposures  of  one  tenth  of  a 
second,  were  misled,  he  believes,  by  the  illusion  of  the 
final  simultaneous  "assimilation,"  not  distinguishing 
this  from  the  slightly  preceding  successive  apperceptions. 

Pharmakodynamik. 

Kilimandscharo. 

Rochefoucauld. 

Demonstrationsvefsuch.  / 

Tagesbeleuchtung. 


FIG.  9!.  —  Movements  of  the  attention  in  Zeitler's  readings. 

They   were    misled    all    the    more    from   being  mainly 
concerned  with  other  factors. 

Messmer  has  more  recently  made  a  long  series  of 
experiments  in  the  psychology  of  reading,  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Zurich.  He  finds  confirmation  of  Zeitler's  con- 
clusions that  perception  in  reading  is  mediated,  for  a 
certain  type  of  readers  at  least,  by  "dominating" 
letters  and  complexes,  and  that  there  is  a  wandering 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  9! 

of  the  attention  over  these.  He  used  very  short  ex- 
posures for  the  most  part,  as  short  as  two  one-thou- 

\ 

sandths  of  a  second,  making  the  time  for  each  reader 
such  as  just  sufficed  to  permit  normal  recognition. 
After  practice,  two  one-thousandths  of  a  second  sufficed 
for  all  his  readers. 

Messmer  finds  that  the  long  letters  which  project  above 
the  line  are  usually  the  dominating  ones.  The  attention 
concerns  itself  most  with  the  upper  half  of  the  word,  and 
the  letters  projecting  below  are  not  so  important.  The 
latter  and  the  short  letters  are  the  ones  most  often  mistaken 
in  the  readings  from  his  exposures.  Letters  projecting 
below  the  line  would  be  mistaken  for  vowels,  as  g  for  a, 
p  for  o,  etc.  "They  possess  optically  the  value  of  small 
letters."  The  dominating  parts  of  words  and  sentences 
are  most  apt  to  strike  the  eye  and  to  get  the  attention. 
But  accidental  circumstances  may  sometimes  make  other 
parts  more  prominent.  In  the  relatively  long  pauses  of 
actual  reading,  very  many  if  not  all  parts  of  the  word  can 
affect  consciousness  somewhat  and  thus  give  clews  which 
help  in  the  recognition,  preventing  the  possibility  of 
errors  in  filling  out  from  the  dominating  letters,  errors 
which  actually  arise,  however,  in  reading  from  the  short 
exposures.  The  dominating  letters  play  the  main  r61e  in 
recognition,  but  the  others  thus  play  an  important  part 
as  well. 

The  experiments  indicated  that  readers  may  be  either 


92  THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

of  a  subjective  or  objective  type.  The  subjective  type 
is  characterized  by  a  wandering  attention  which  travels 
far  from  the  fixation  point,  by  a  large  associative  contri- 
bution in  perceiving,  and  by  slight  fidelity  to  the  outward 
object.  Readers  of  this  type  apperceive  words  from  the 
total  character  of  the  word-form  rather  than  from  the 
dominating  parts,  these  latter  not  differentiating  from 
the  whole.  The  objective  readers,  with  characteristics 
which  are  the  opposite  of  the  above,  recognize  the 
dominating  parts  first,  and  the  effect  of  the  total  form 
is  minor.  They  read  a  smaller  amount  at  a  glance 
than  do  the  subjective  readers,  but  are  less  liable  to  error. 
It  was  found  that  during  a  reading  pause  there  is  first 
an  impression  of  the  whole  word,  as  "lively,"  "stiff,"  etc., 
for  example,  a  feeling  reaction  to  the  total  word-appear- 
ance. This  may  alone  suffice  to  set  off  the  recognition  of 
the  word ;  usually,  however,  with  objective  readers  at  any 
rate,  there  follows  a  successive  coming  to  consciousness 
of  first  the  high  dominant  letters,  then  the  low  and  "in- 
different" ones.  Small  letters  adjoining  a  dominant 
letter  may,  by  their  proximity,  help  in  forming  a  total 
configuration  and  may  thus  come  to  consciousness  as  part 
of  a  dominant  complex.  The  effect  upon  consciousness 
of  the  total  word-form  as  such  is  a  simultaneous  one, 
but  the  dominant  parts  come  to  consciousness  successively. 
He  agrees  with  Zeitler  that  in  actual  reading  these  suc- 
cessive acts  of  recognition  follow  each  other  so  rapidly 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  93 

that  they  appear  simultaneous.  He  finds  that  word- 
length  plays  little  part  in  characterizing  words  for  chil- 
dren, and  that  it  is  usually  less  important  for  children 
than  are  the  dominant  complexes. 

Messmer's  analysis  of  the  "total  character  of  words" 
has  a  considerable  value.  The  three  main  factors  are, 
first,  breadth  of  the  letters  horizontally;  second,  height 
of  the  letters  vertically;  third,  geometrical  form  of  the 
letters.  As  to  breadth,  the  letters  are  composed  of  one, 
two,  or  three  vertical  strokes,  as  i,  h,  m,  or  of  forms  oc- 
cupying one  or  another  of  these  three  horizontal  spaces. 
Of  one  thousand  consecutive  letters  on  a  German  page, 
seven  hundred  and  thirty  are  found  to  be  small  letters. 
While  these  are  usually  of  about  the  same  height,  they 
have  a  variety  of  widths,  as  appears  when  words  are 

printed  in  vertical  arrangement,  as 

> 

W 

i 

m 

m         Wimmern. 

e 

r 
n 

It  might  seem,  therefore,  that  letter-width  is  a  very  im- 
portant factor  in  characterizing  the  total  word-form. 
However,  the  differences  in  letter-width  largely  disappear 
in  the  total  impression  of  word-length  given  in  our  hori- 


94  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

zontal  arrangement  of  the  letters.  Differentiation  in 
letter-width,  therefore,  seems  to  be  of  comparatively 
little  value.  Indeed,  Messmer  found  frequent  errors  in 
perception  due  to  combining  parts  of  adjacent  letters  into 
a  wrongly  conjectured  letter,  or  to  making  still  other  mis- 
taken groupings  of  the  individual  strokes. 

The  uniform  height  of  the  small  letters  is  the  measure 
of  the  word's  height  in  the  main,  since  these  letters  are 
in  such  a  majority.  But  the  long  letters  relieve  the  monot- 
ony by  their  projections,  and  thus  characterize  the  word  in 
the  vertical  meridian.  Viewing  the  total  word-form 
as  to  height,  these  long  letters  vary  it  and  give  a 
characteristic  outline.  Considering  the  total  word-length, 
these  letters  break  it  up  into  sections, — "rhythmize"  it, 
to  use  Messmer's  expression.  Note  this  effect  in  Ver- 
schiedenheiten,  as  compared  with  Zusammenreisen. 

The  word  is  characterized,  thirdly,  by  the  geometrical 
form  of  the  particular  letters  composing  it.  Disregarding 
their  variations  in  height  and  breadth  already  referred  to, 
the  letters  may  be  grouped,  first,  into  those  composed  es- 
sentially of  vertical  strokes,  as  i,  n,  m,  t,  1,  f,  h,  r,  j ;  second, 
those  composed  essentially  of  curved  lines,  as  o,  e,  c,  s,  a,  g ; 
third,  those  composed  essentially  of  both  perpendicular 
strokes  and  curved  lines,  as  b,  d,  q,  p ;  fourth,  those  com- 
posed essentially  of  oblique  strokes,  as,  w,  v,  y,  x,  z,  k,  the 
last  letter  having  also  a  perpendicular  stroke.  The  first 
group  includes  almost  half  the  letters,  469  per  thousand 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  95 

as  they  occur  consecutively  on  the  page.  The  second 
group  has  over  one-third,  371  per  thousand.  Only 
6 1  per  thousand  belong  to  the  third  group,  and  46  per 
thousand  to  the  fourth.  The  remaining  63  per  thousand 
were  capital  letters,  more  frequent,  of  course,  in  German 
than  in  English. 

The  predominance  of  one  or  another  of  these  classes  of 
letters,  in  any  given  word,  gives  it  a  characteristic  total 
appearance,  as  in  wimmern  and  ubereinstimmen,  for  the 
first  group,  and  ausgeschlossen,  psychologisch,  for  the 
second.  The  former  words  have  a  unitariness  of  total 
character,  giving  an  unbroken  total  impression.  Their 
total  form,  however,  is  too  little  differentiated,  and  such 
words  are  most  often  misread  and  "  most  uncertainly 
recognized  or  falsely  interpreted."  They  are  "stiff" 
as  contrasted  with  the  words  of  the  second  group,  whose 
letters  have  more  individuality,  and  whose  words  are 
thus  better  differentiated  and  recognized  with  greater 
certainty.  These  characteristics  of  the  first  two  groups 
are  combined  in  such  words  as  characteristisch,  wis- 
senschaftliche,  each  containing  about  equal  numbers  of 
these  two  groups  of  letters.  The  total  impression  here 
is  at  least  agreeable,  and  Messmer  calls  it  "the  most 
favorable  total  form, "  since  it  gives  "the  greatest 
harmony  and  most  agreeable  contrast." 

Groups  two,  three,  and  four  include  fewer  of  the  al- 
phabet letters  than  are  found  in  group  one.  As  they  also 


96  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

occur  less  frequently  in  any  given  line,  they  thus  have  more 
individuality  and  differentiate  the  line  better  than  the 
letters  of  group  one.  This  is  particularly  true  of  the 
second  group,  the  others  partaking  somewhat  of  the  nature 
of  the  first  group.  In  words  which  contain  no  long 
letters,  as  zusammenreisen  above,  certain  letters  having 
the  greatest  individuality  seem  to  serve  as  dominating 
letters,  and  to  some  extent  break  up  or  "rhythmize" 
the  word.  Messmer  finds  that  readers  do  not  get  any 
very  distinct  notion  of  the  length  of  the  words  exposed, 
very  often  mistaking  a  word  for  some  much  shorter  one, 
occasionally  for  a  longer  one.  This  was  especially  the 
case  with  his  child  readers,  and  he  thinks  that  for  them,  at 
least,  word-length  is  but  a  minor  factor  in  word-perception, 
lln  experiments  made  some  years  ago  I  found  that  the 
first  half  of  a  word  is  of  considerably  greater  importance 
for  perception  than  is  the  latter  half.)  If  the  reader  will 
turn  to  page  100  and  will  read  down  the  last  column  of 
words  as  fast  as  possible,  endeavoring  to  avoid  lateral 
movement  of  the  eyes,  he  will  probably  find  himself 
fixating  the  words  to  the  left  of  the  center.  If  he  will 
then  read  down  the  column  again,  fixating  toward  the 
end  of  the  words,  say  three  or  four  letters  from  the 
end,  and  again  fixating  near  the  beginning  of  the  words, 
he  will  find  the  reading  much  easier  in  the  latter  case. 
Indeed,  in  ordinary  reading,  I  find  myself  much  more 
conscious  of  the  beginning  of  words  than  of  their  other 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  97 

parts,  although  I  am  not  certain  that  my  readers  will 
be  able  to  verify  this  by  their  introspection. 

It  will  be  recalled  that  the  beginning  of  a  word  was 
regularly  found  to  be  a  determining  or  dominating  part, 
in  some  of  the  exposure  experiments.  Indeed,  the  termi- 
nal letters  are  considerably  more  legible  than  the  others, 
perhaps  from  being  partially  isolated.  Fixate  the  middle 
of  one  of  the  long  words  and  you  will  probably  find  your- 
self much  more  conscious  of  the  end  letters  than  of  many 
of  the  intervening  ones.  The  writer  made  a  quantitative 
test  of  the  comparative  importance  of  the  first  and  last 
halves  of  words  by  having  readers  read  passages  from 
which  the  first  half  of  each  word  was  carefully  removed  in 
the  one  case,  and  the  second  half  in  the  other.  Specimen 
lines  are  shown  in  Figure  10,  the  unmutilated  passage 
being  printed  at  the  end.  It  was  found  that  more 
words  were  made  out,  and  in  less  tune,  when  the  first 
halves  were  read  than  when  the  latter  halves  alone 

ly        ures    f      ch  i        erne?  f     is  es     >t  eal   o 

MI,     en     U     >u        dly,    om  i  re  tical  point, 

ate  he       ages    ad      >rms       st      atly  ded?  ir 

pose  so          bine     ase     aws,  tically  id  wise,    ad 

o     nd  a      nted     py  o    ch  ibutor. 

he    ;ms      low        ely        gest  iing  ics.  ect     Dse 

3u    re      st         ested  n    ad    id  ay      ers. 

ar     feat         o    su      £  sea  I    tn    do      nc     app       t 

yc     th     wi     yc     kin        fr       £  mo     pract        stand 
ste     tl    chat       ar    refc        mo    gres       nee  Ot  purj 

i   t   com         the      vi«.       statist  ar     other  at 

t  se      s  prit       co      t    ea     contri- 

Tb    ite     bel       mer     sugg       lead       top         Sel      the 
yc    ai    mo    inter         i    at    ad    an    oth 
H 


98  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

any  features  of  such  a  scheme?  If  this  does  not  appeal  "to 
you  then  will  you  kindly,  from  a  more  practical  standpoint, 
state  the  changes  and  reforms  most  greatly  needed  ?  Our  pur- 
pose is  to  combine  these  views,  statistically  and  otherwise,;  and 
to  send  a  printed  copy  to  each  contributor. 

The  items  below  merely  suggest  leading  topics.    Select  those 
you  are  most  interested  in  and  add  any  others. 

FIG.  jo.1 

remained.  The  four  readers  tested  averaged  .49  words 
per  second  when  reading  from  the  first  halves,  as  against 
•33  words  per  second  when  reading  from  the  last  halves. 
Among  factors  which  cooperate  to  produce  this  result 
may  be  mentioned,  first,  the  tendency  of  English  to  piace 
the  accent  upon  the  first  part  of  the  word,  the  accented 
part  then  tending  to  represent  the  word,  at  least  the  spoken 
word ;  second,  the  preponderance  of  the  number  of  suffixes 
over  prefixes,  the  main  root  of  the  word  tending  to  appear 
in  the  first  part,  thus  rendering  the  first  part  more  im- 
portant. It  seems  probable  also,  as  a  third  factor,  that 
the  time-order  in  ordinary  inter-association  of  syllables  has 
much  to  do  with  the  difference  shown.  This  time-order 
has  almost  always  been  from  the  first  part  toward  the 
latter,  and,  as  has  been  shown  by  various  experiments, 
associations  do  not  work  nearly  so  well  in  reversed 
time-order. 

!xThe  upper  half  of  a  word  or  letter  is  obviously  more 
important  for  perception  than  is  the  lower  halfy  This 
may  be  tested  by  comparing  the  difficulty  of  reading 

1  Reproduced  from  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  July,  1898. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  99 

the  two  mutilated  passages  below,  the  unmutilated  pas- 
sage being  in  the  same  type:  — 

Everybody  knows  the  story  of  Mary  and  her  little  lamb;  but  not 
every  one  knows  that  Mary  E.  Sawyer,  who  was  born  in  Worcester 
county,  was  the  heroine  of  the  poem. 

WViAn  "VTqrv  ITTQQ  a  liM-]»  (rirl  =!•>«>  frmnrl  a  n*>w-}wrn  lamH  n«»ar1v 
i^fttii  with  Tinner"'1'  t>nr\  rr\]r\  CV>a  tonrlorlw  rmTO«»/-l  it  Ho/*V  tr»  lif<»  str>f\ 
Kor-ama  r\wntc*r\\\r  5»ttar*V>»/1  *•/-.  }ii»i-  crAntlo  rV>ar(T<»  TVia  lotwK  nraa  Viar 
rrvnctont  rr>mr\qninn  an/1  r>l «> irm Q to  «jn/1  -nroc  tr»  Vi*»i-  nrViot  a 

VVucu    i»j.cii^  a  luin    \_imiv,   lux  uci    iv,v.ii.auoiia    LIIC   lainu   icua  uuwu 
vtiv;   CLIJIW   a.iix.1    in-i    tv>   uiw  iniv^iioc  iu,iigui  vi    Luc  OV.IKJIUIO  aiiu  mv.  oui 
jjiio^  vi    niv^    icav^uci.        xiic   lainu  woo  put.  vuioiub,  <uiu  11  vraiicu  vii 
iiic   uu-jiaicp  iui   xucujr   anu   lunuwcu  uci    iiuiuc* 

FIG.  ii. 

Professor  Javal,  from  watching  the  course  of  an  after- 
image along  the  lines  as  he  read,  and  for  other  reasons, 
concluded,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  eye 's  fixation  point 
moved  along  between  the  middle  and  top  of  the  small 
letters,  thus  giving  an  advantage  in  perception  to  the 
upper  half  of  the  line.  As  already  mentioned,  I  do  not 
consider  his  experiments  final  on  this  point ;  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  the  greater  importance  of  the  upper  part  is 
due  rather  to  the  words  being  better  differentiated  there 
than  below,  as  is  shown  by  Messmer's  count  of  two 
hundred  and  thirty-eight  letters  projecting  above  the  line 
to  thirty-two  below.  Besides,  we  habitually  find  most 
meanings  in  the  upper  parts  of  objects;  we  ourselves 
are  so  placed  and  so  oriented  as  to  bring  this  about. 


100 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 


In  considering  whether  we  read  by  letters  or  by  word- 
wholes,  my  readers  may  be  assisted  in  their  judgment 
by  reading  down  the  column  of  letters  below,  as  fast 
as  possible,  either  simply  recognizing  each  or  pronounc- 
ing it  aloud,  and  then  doing  the  same  for  the  columns 


y 

w 
u 
s 

q 

o 
m 
k 
i 

g 
e 
c 
a 
z 
x 

V 

t 

r 

P 

n 

1 

i 

h 

f 
d 


pool 

rugs 

mark 

send 

list 

more 

pick 

stab 

neck 

your 

dice 

font 

earl 

whit 

ants 

role 

sink 

rust 

ware 

fuss 

tick 

rasp 

mold 

hive 

four 


analysis 

habitual 

occupied 

inherent 

probable 

summoned 

devotion 

remarked 

overcome 

resolute 

elements 

conclude 

numbered 

struggle 

division 

research 

original 

involved 

obstacle 

relative 

physical 

pas  tn  ess 

lacteals 

sameness 

distract 


anthropology 

independence 

histological 

astronomical 

tautological 

paleontology 

consummation 

concomitance 

epistemology 

irritability 

somnambulism 

minimization 

malleability 

emblematical 

permeability 

etymological 

quantitative 

ascertaining 

definiteness 

sociological 

legitimately 

scientifical 

institutions 

governmental 

emphatically 


FIG.  12. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  1O1 

of  words  containing  four,  eight,  and  twelve  letters  re« 
spectively,  comparing  the  rate  and  difficulty  by  the  aid 
of  a  stop-watch,  if  one  is  at  hand.  It  will  be  evident 
that  the  multiplication  of  letters  makes  proportionately 
little  difference  in  the  ease  or  speed  of  recognition.  In 
my  own  experiments  in  which  such  lists  were  read  aloud 
as  fast  as  possible,  my  four  readers  read  the  lists  in  the 
following  times:  — 

50  letters  in  an  average  of  15.7  seconds. 
50  four-letter  words  in  an  average  of  17.3  seconds. 
50  eight-letter  words  in  an  average  of  19.6  seconds. 
50  twelve-letter  words  in  an  average  of  28.5  seconds. 
50  sixteen -letter  words  in  an  average  of  54.1  seconds. 

Since  part  of  the  slightly  lessened  speed  of  reading  eight- 
letter  words  as  compared  with  those  of  four  letters  must 
probably  be  due  to  the  utterance  of  the  additional  syl- 
lable or  syllables  in  the  former  case,  it  seems  certain 
that  the  recognition  of  familar  and  comparatively  short 
words  is  little  affected  by  doubling  the  number  of  letters ; 
and  this  seems  confirmatory  of  the  view  that  such  words 
are  recognized  in  one  unitary  act,  as  wholes.  The  greatly 
lessened  speed  of  reading  the  words  of  sixteen  letters  as 
compared  with  those  of  twelve  is  due  in  part  to  their  being 
considerably  less  familiar.  It  is  probably  due  in  much 
greater  part  to  the  need  of  making  lateral  movements  of 
the  eye,  these  words  occupying  a  considerable  horizontal 
space  when  typewritten  for  use  in  the  experiments. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  PERCEPTUAL  PROCESS  IN  READING 

If  is  very  difficult  to  draw  final  conclusions  concern- 
ing visual  perception  in  reading,  In  the  present  stage 
of  the  investigations.  I  have,  therefore,  given  at  some 
length  the  views  of  the  various  experimenters,  and  have 
referred  to  many  of  the  particular  experiments  upon 
which  they  are  based,  that  my  readers  may  be  helped 
in  drawing  their  own  conclusions.  I  am  glad  to  know 
that  further  studies  are  being  undertaken  in  this  field,  and 
by  comparing  the  results  of  these  as  they  are  published 
with  this  review  of  the  work  thus  far,  the  truth  will 
no  doubt  gradually  appear,  as  to  most  of  the  problems. 
We  are  all  working  toward  daylight  in  the  matter,  and 
many  of  the  discrepancies  of  facts  and  theories  are  more 
apparent  than  real.  A  very  important  section  of  general 
psychology  must  here  be  worked  out,  constructed  in 
the  new  rather  than  taken  and  applied.  How  do  we 
perceive  anything?  The  whole  stupendous  problem 
rises  at  every  turn,  but  is  far  too  large  even  to  be  ade- 
quately stated  here.  The  following  conclusions  seem 
to  me  to  be  warranted  by  the  data  now  at  hand. 

Goldscheider  and  Mtiller  were  profoundly  right  when 
they  said  that  readers  perceive  in  various  ways  as  their  pur- 

102 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  103 

pose  can  be  best  attained.  We  must  allow  for  consider 
able  variety,  not  merely  of  individuals  but  of  occasions. 
The  manner  of  perceiving  words  must  depend,  for  the 
child,  very  largely  on  how  he  is  taught  to  perceive  them 
in  learning  to  read,  and  here,  as  we  know,  the  methods  are 
most  diverse.  To  take  a  simple  example,  the  writer  still 
finds  himself  hesitant  in  naming  or  recognizing  several  capi- 
tal letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  perhaps  even  incapable 
of  recognizing  one  or  two  of  them  when  seen  in  isolation. 
Yet  Greek  was  a  favorite  study  with  him  through  years  of. 
college  and  secondary  school.  The  reason  for  his  per- 
sistent inattention  to  the  letters  is  evident  enough.  He 
began  Greek  with  the  sentence  method,  and  his  attention 
was  seldom  called  to  the  particular  letters  in  reading. 

The  perceptual  process  in  the  practiced  reader  doubt- 
less uses  many  a  short-cut  for  which  there  can  be  no 
science.  Such  a  reader  has  grown  up  with  these  letter- 
forms  and  word-forms  as  intimate  parts  of  his  environ- 
ment. He  has  made  friends,  boon  companions,  of  them, 
in  his  own  way,  and  differently  with  each.  Some  early 
absurd  way  of  thinking  about  A,  or  about  the  appearance 
of  the  word  cat  or  and,  may  have  grown  to  be  the  in- 
variable feeling  reaction  which  greets  this  form  when  it 
appears,  may  really  be  the  core  of  the  consciousness 
in  its  recognition.  Various  experiences  and  associa- 
tions have  been  woven  in  with  the  appearance  of  the 
various  word-forms,  differing  from  reader  to  reader. 


104  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

These  determine  in  part  what  will  stand  out  most  promi- 
nently in  any  given  word.  They  bring  out  now  the 
general  outline  of  the  total  word-form,  now  this  or  that 
dominant  letter  or  complex,  now  the  word-length,  etc., 
as  one  or  the  other  of  these  may  have  formed  the  basis 
of  our  individual  experiences  with  the  given  word. 

However,  there  are  general  features  of  the  perceptual 
process  which  appear  as  we  survey  the  collected  data 
from  all  the  experiments  on  reading.  In  the  first  place, 
perceiving  is  an  act,  a  thing  that  we  do,  always  and  every- 
where, never  a  mere  passive  sensing  of  a  group  of  passing 
sensations  or  impressions.  It  probably  always  involves 
actual  innervation  of  muscles,  and  indeed  coordinated 
and  organized,  we  may  say  unitized,  innervation  of  muscles. 
Certainly  on  the  psychic  side  there  is  an  active  and  more  or 
less  unitized  movement  of  mind,  a  sense  of  inner  activity. 

Perceiving  being  an  act,  it  is,  like  all  other  things  that 
we  do,  performed  more  easily  with  each  repetition  of  the 
act.  To  perceive  an  entirely  new  word  or  other  combina- 
tion of  strokes  requires  considerable  time,  close  attention, 
and  is  likely  to.  be  imperfectly  done,  just  as  when  we 
attempt  some  new  combination  of  movements,  some  new 
trick  in  the  gymnasium  or  new  "serve"  at  tennis.  In 
either  case,  repetition  progressively  frees  the  mind  from 
attention  to  details,  makes  facile  the  total  act,  shortens  the 
time,  and  reduces  the  extent  to  which  consciousness  must 
concern  itself  with  the  process.  One  may  say  that  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  105 

"memory  image"  helps  in  the  later  perception  of  thft 
word ;  but  it  may  well  be  that,  as  Goldscheider  and  Miiller 
put  it,  the  memory  is  but  an  exercise  or  habit  of  the  ap- 
perceptive  activity  (Uebung  der  Apperceptionsthatigkeit), 
—  that  we  perceive  better  at  the  later  trial  just  as  we 
shoot  better  or  skate  better  with  practice. 

Again,  as  in  the  performance  of  any  act,  a  perception 
may  involve  more  and  more  complex  constituent  acts 
as  these  are  progressively  welded  together  by  practice, 
and  especially  as  they  become  synthesized  to  a  total  per- 
formance which  may  be  set  off  from  a  single  consciousness 
cue.  It  comes  about,  therefore,  that  just  as  the  com- 
plicated but  associatively  concatenated  and  organized 
movements  of  hitting  a  target  with  a  ball  may  be  touched 
off  by  the  mere  sight  of  the  target,  in  one  attention-act, 
so  the  various  activities  involved  in  apperceiving  a  phrase 
or  other  word-group  may  become  one  complex  but  unitary 
act,  and  this  act  may  be  set  off  very  simply  by  this  or  that 
cue  or  set  of  cues  given  from  the  page,  and  may  be  done 
with  a  minimum  of  consciousness  concerning  details. 

Again,  perception  is  always  a  projection  or  localization 
outward  of  a  consciousness  which  is  aroused  or  suggested 
by  the  stimulations  that  have  come  inward,  but  which 
is  conditioned  strongly,  also,  from  within.  We  have  seen 
how,  when  some  dominant  parts  of  a  word  or  sentence 
were  exposed  without  the  other  parts,  the  reader  would 
project  the  absent  letters  upon  the  page  and  would  "see" 


106  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

them  as  distinctly  as  when  they  were  actually  before  him. 
We  have  seen,  too,  how  in  every  moment  of  our  reading 
we  project  letters  and  parts  of  letters  to  fill  up  the  gaps 
that  are  always  left  in  the  peripheral  parts  of  our  retinal 
image.  We  know  how  we  project  a  consciousness  content 
to  serve  for  what  should  be  imaged  on  the  "blind  spot." 
Such  projection  is  as  certain  and  as  common  as  is  any 
mental  phenomenon.  The  simple  fact  is  that  the  words 
and  all  the  other  objects  that  we  ever  see  are  thus  thrown 
outward,  projected  upon  a  page  in  the  case  of  reading, 
somewhat  as  a  lantern  might  throw  them  outward  upon 
a  screen.  In  the  case  of  perception  it  might  be  said 
that  the  mind  furnishes  the  screen  as  well.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  consciousness  does  not  dwell  in 
the  retina  or  in  retinal  images.  Objects  may  be  pictured 
very  well  without  any  retina  or  optic  nerve.  For  our 
purposes  here  consciousness  may  best  be  thought  of  as 
hi  the  brain,  totally  in  the  dark  as  to  physical  environ- 
ment, constructing  even  its  light  as  well  as  its  forms 
and  meanings  according  to  the  excitations  that  come  in 
to  it  and  their  relations  with  those  that  have  previously 
come  in.  I  raise  here  no  question  of  idealism,  and  there 
need  be  no  discussion  of  metaphysics.1  An  outer  world 

1  Of  course  the  whole  matter  could  be  stated  equally  well  in  terms  of 
James'  radical  empiricism,  without  affecting  the  argument  here.  I  have 
come  to  consider  the  doctrine  of  James  to  be  nearer  the  truth.  How- 
ever, my  thought  about  perception  in  reading  is  doubtless  more  intel- 
ligible as  stated  in  terms  of  my  working  hypothesis  of  plain  dualism. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  107 

may  be  there  and  may  be  quite  as  I  think  it,  doubtless 
is  a  very  great  deal  more  than  I  think  it.  But  it  is 
simply  an  empirical  fact  that  I  do  project  my  thought 
of  it,  that  there  is  constructed  a  consciousness  world. 

When  visual  forms,  then,  affect  my  retina,  there  come 
to  the  brain  certain  signs  of  their  presence,  position,  etc. 
The  character  and  destination  of  the  incoming  excitations 
from  the  retinal  image  are  sufficient  signs  of  the  presence 
of  the  particular  form.  Its  distance,  size,  and  orientation 
in  space  are  suggested  from  certain  other  signs,  such  as 
excitations  from  the  muscles  of  accommodation  and  con- 
vergence, along  with  others  which  indicate  the  bodily 
position  at  the  moment.  The  totality  of  signs,  out- 
wardly and  inwardly  initiated,  suggest  or  awaken  a  con- 
sciousness corresponding  to  the  particular  sign-combina- 
tion, a  consciousness  which  is  projected  or  placed,  we  say 
apperceived  sometimes,  in  its  proper  place  and  relations, 
or  rather  a  consciousness  which  is  our  seen  world  of  the 
moment,  including  the  page,  the  letters,  etc. 

The  signs  indicative  of  the  presence  and  nature  of  an 
object  of  perception  may  be  either  states  of  consciousness 
or  merely  neural  conditions.  In  the  case  of  a  word  per- 
ceived upon  a  printed  page,  it  seems  likely  that  the  dis- 
tance and  direction  of  the  word  from  the  reader,  and 
the  word's  arrangement  as  spread  out  upon  the  page, 
are  suggested  mainly  by  states  of  the  eye-muscles  and 
tendencies  to  innervation  peculiar  to  dealing  with  such  a 


108  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

form  in  such  a  place,  states  and  tendencies  which  are 
in  the  main  neural  only,  except  under  artificial  con- 
ditions of  introspection.  On  the  other  hand,  certain  of 
the  signs  suggestive  of  the  perceptual  consciousness  are 
themselves  consciousness  states,  having,  of  course,  neural 
excitations  also  as  correlates  if  not  as  causes.  Among 
these  consciousness  signs  are  the  various  intensities  of 
blacks,  whites,  and  grays  which  occur  hi  the  printed 
form,  and  the  context  imagery  and  feeling  from  what 
has  just  been  read  and  from  the  general  subject  of 
thought  and  feeling  for  that  moment.  Part  of  these 
signs  are  operative  precedent  to  the  beginning  of  ad- 
equate stimulation  from  the  particular  word  perceived. 
Such  are  the  signs  indicative  of  the  word's  distance 
and  position,  with  a  certain  context  consciousness  lead- 
ing the  reader  to  expect  a  certain  kind  of  word,  etc. 
The  word  is  to  this  extent  preperceived ;  there  is  a 
"set"  or  "predisposition"  in  its  direction  which  may 
need  but  a  few  supplemental  signs  to  set  off  the  proper 
perception. 

When  we  consider  that  the  arrangement  on  the  page, 
of  the  words  and  of  their  parts,  is  a  construction  within 
from  cues  which  are  probably  given  in  non-spatial  order, 
we  are  prepared  for  the  statement  of  Zeitler  that  in  the 
first  awareness  of  the  dominating  letters  of  a  word  they  are 
not  seen  in  any  very  fixed  spatial  arrangement,  and  are 
only  put  in  place  and  "anchored"  there  as  the  recognition 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  109 

completes  itself  with  the  coming  of  the  associative  con- 
tribution from  within.  The  wonder  is  that  the  cues  to 
the  arrangement  of  the  letters  are  not  more  often  fallacious, 
and  that  misreadings  like  Krone  for  Korne,  aneotic  foi 
anoetic,  Larabee  for  Labaree,  actual  cases  which  I  have 
noticed  recently,  are  so  infrequent  with  most  readers. 
In  this  view  of  perception  one  is  inclined  to  accept 
what  the  experiments  of  Zeitler,  Messmer,  and  others 
seem  to  show,  that  the  first  factors  of  perception  in  reading 
are  not  usually  the  total  form,  word-length,  etc.,  but  certain 
striking  "dominant"  parts,  the  appreciation  of  total  word- 
form  and  word-length  coming  a  little  later  as  the  recogni- 
tion is  completed  at  the  suggestion  of  these  dominant  cues. 
However,  while  the  experiments  of  these  investigators 
indicate  the  special  part  which  the  dominant  letters  and 
letter-groups  play  in  setting  off  the  word-recognitions, 
we  need  by  no  means  suppose  that  the  former  are  always 
or  usually  apperceived  as  distinct  letters  in  performing 
this  function  of  special  signs.  Through  their  being  the 
most  obvious  parts  optically,  and  through  habit,  they 
have  come  to  be  most  quickly  operative  in  unlocking 
the  word-recognitions;  but  in  ordinary  reading  they 
would  seem  to  have  but  a  minimum  of  attention,  per- 
forming their  function  automatically  and  without  any 
apperceptive  act  that  is  distinct  from  that  for  the  larger 
whole  in  which  their  recognition  is  subsumed.  When 
that  total  recognition  completes  itself,  however,  we  are 


HO  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

apt  to  be  conscious  of  these  dominant  forms  as  the  mosl 
prominent  parts  of  the  word. 

With  some  readers,  however,  and  perhaps  with  all  of 
us  for  many  words,  the  total  form,  word-length,  etc., 
seem  to  characterize  the  word  and  are  apparently  the 
first  factors  in  its  recognition.  In  these  cases  the  stimu- 
lations from  all  the  parts  and  points  which  signalize  this 
total  form  are  operative  simultaneously  as  cues  which 
set  off  the  projection  of  this  form,  and  this  general  out- 
line rather  than  a  few  particular  dominant  letter-shapes 
is  the  aspect  of  which  we  are  apt  to  be  most  conscious 
in  the  total  recognition.  In  such  cases  the  recognition 
could  well  be  set  off  by  a  skeleton  drawing  of  the  word 
showing  no  particular  letter  forms,  and  might  well  occur 
at  distances  at  which  particular  letters  were  no  longer 
recognizable  as  such.  There  is  no  question  but  that 
such  perception  can  occur,  for  certain  words  and  for 
certain  readers,  and  that  it  does  occur.  But  Erd- 
mann  and  Dodge  have  here  apparently  mistaken  what 
is  possible  and  many  times  actual  for  a  usual  and  almost 
universal  method  of  recognition.  Here  the  testimony 
of  the  majority  of  careful  experimenters  is  against  them. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  outline  form  of  a  word  is  a 
rather  inconstant  quantity.  For  a  considerable  part  of 
our  reading  we  concern  ourselves  with  written  symbols, 
in  which  the  word's  total  form  is  different,  often  very 
different,  from  reading  to  reading.  Not  only  do  the 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 


III 


though 


though 


height  and  slant  of  the  letters  vary,  but  the  spacings 
between  them  and,  of  course,  the  total  length.  If  the 
reader  will  place  side  by  side  various  printed,  written, 
and  type-written  forms  of  the  same  word,  the  variations 
hi  the  outline  form  will  be  evident,  as  hi  the  example 
below.  Of  course  the  letter-forms  change  as  well,  and 
it  might  be  difficult  to  determine 
whether  these  or  the  total  form  have 
the  greater  variation. 

The  constant  practice  of  writing 
words  letter  after  letter,  and  the  use 
of  the  letters  in  abbreviations,  etc., 
tends  to  increase  the  consciousness  of 
single  letters  as  they  appear  in  words, 
and  thus  to  break  up  the  consciousness 
of  total  word-form.  Of  course,  too, 
the  school  practice  in  spelling  and 
the  synthetic  methods  of  learning  to 
read  contribute  strongly  to  the  domi- 
nance of  letter-units  in  the  perception 
of  words.  Even  in  the  more  pronounced  cases  of  letter  con- 
sciousness, however,  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  words  are  not 
perceived  by  a  successive  recognition  of  letter  after  letter, 
or  even  by  any  simultaneous  recognition  of  all  the  letters  as 
such.  By  whatever  cues  the  recognition  may  be  set  off,  it 
is  certainly  a  recognition  of  word-wholes,  except  when  even 
these  recognition  units  are  subsumed  under  the  recognition 


FIG.  13. 


H2  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

of  a  still  larger  unit.  The  only  question  is  as  to  what  parts 
are  especially  operative  as  cues  in  setting  off  this  recognition. 

Doubtless,  for  readers  who  are  familiar  with  the  letters, 
the  recognition  of  word-wholes  and  of  phrase  or  sentence 
wholes  involves  the  inhibition  of  incipient  recognitions 
which  start  for  the  letters  or  other  constituent  units. 
There  is  a  hierarchy  of  recognition  habits,  the  exercise 
of  the  higher  drafting  away  the  consciousness  that  would 
otherwise  serve  for  completing  the  recognition  of  the  par- 
ticular letters.  Let  us  examine  the  case  of  perceiving  a 
single  letter  as  such,  and  then  that  of  perceiving  the  larger 
and  progressively  more  complex  reading  units. 

When  a  single  letter  is  exposed  and  recognized  as  a 
letter,  the  simultaneously  given  stimulations  from  its 
various  parts  mutually  reenforce  each  other,  having  been 
associatively  knitted  together  in  past  experience.  Doubt- 
less even  in  the  case  of  the  letter  certain  of  its  parts  are 
more  characteristic  than  others,  and  thus,  having  had  the 
attention  oftener,  become  especially  effective  in  touching 
off  the  letter's  recognition,  and  may  even  do  so  when  the 
more  indifferent  parts  of  the  letter  are  absent  or  are  ignored. 
Doubtless  we  have  dominant  parts  of  letters  as  of  words. 
The  full  recognition  of  the  letter  doubtless  has  in  it  a  slight 
feeling  attitude  toward  it  as  a  total  form,  and  carries  with 
it  some  notion  of  the  letter's  sound  and,  more  distantly 
perhaps,  the  letter's  name. 

But  now  consider  the  recognition  of  a  familiar  word  in 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  113 

which  this  letter  is  contained,  the  observer  knowing  in  ad- 
vance that  a  word  and  not  a  single  letter  is  to  be  exposed. 
In  this  case  there  occur  as  before  the  coexcitations  from 
the  parts  of  the  letter,  knitting  to  an  associative  complex 
from  habit  and  quite  automatically,  and  tending  to  set 
off  a  recognition  act  for  this  letter.  However,  there  oc- 
cur simultaneously  the  other  groups  of  coexcitations  from 
the  other  letters,  each  tending  to  set  off  its  own  letter  rec- 
ognition, but  tending  also,  when  occurring  in  this  partic- 
ular combination  of  letter-groups,  to  function  with  them 
in  setting  off  the  recognition  of  the  word.  The  context 
"set"  for  words  tips  the  balance  in  favor  of  the  unitary 
recognition  of  the  word,  which  drafts  to  itself  the  energy 
and  consciousness  which  would  otherwise  have  been  given 
to  the  letters  as  such.  With  very  familiar  words,  the  letter 
recognitions  are  checked  in  their  incipiency.  With  new 
words,  the  recognition  of  certain  letters  may  quite  com- 
plete itself  before  the  whole  word  is  known. 

With  the  familiar  word,  as  with  the  letter,  certain  parts 
may  be  dominant  parts,  being  first  factors  or  more  effective 
factors  in  setting  off  the  word-recognition.  And  here  we 
may,  in  part,  accept  the  findings  of  Goldscheider  and 
Miiller,  Zeitler,  and  Messmer  as  to  what  the  dominant 
parts  are,  and  that  these  are  first  factors  in  initiating  the 
word-recognition,  for  most  readers  and  for  most  words. 
That  these  dominant  parts  have  apperception  acts  prece- 
dent to  or  distinct  from  the  apperception  of  the  words  as 


114  TPK   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

wholes  must  be  denied,  it  seems  to  me,  for  actual  reading. 
Such  separate  apperception  acts  seem  to  occur  mainly  as 
artifacts  of  the  experiments  with  short  exposures  and 
strained  attention.  That  we  may  be  conscious  of  the  dom- 
inant parts  earlier  than  of  the  other- parts,  inside  the  total 
recognition  act,  seems  to  be  the  real  fact,  and  the  greater 
prominence  of  the  dominant  parts,  in  consciousness,  is 
verifiable  by  introspection. 

Again,  as  to  perceiving  by  total  form :  for  some  readers, 
and  for  all  of  us  in  the  case  of  many  familiar  words,  co- 
excitations  from  the  various  parts  that  make  up  a  word's 
total  outline,  independently  of  their  being  parts  of  letters, 
mutually  assist  each  other  in  acting  as  cues  to  touch  off 
the  recognition  of  the  word.  When  this  recognition  occurs, 
we  are  conscious  of  the  total  form,  as  in  the  other  case  we 
were  conscious  of  the  dominant  letters,  earlier  and  more 
prominently  than  of  the  constituent  letters  of  the  word- 
form.  Here  again  it  seems  that  total  form  is  not  apper- 
ceived  separately,  but  that,  in  one  act  of  projection,  the 
total  form  and  the  parts  to  fill  it  are  placed,  although  this 
unitary  act  is  not  necessarily  simultaneous  any  more 
than  is  the  act  of  hitting  a  target. 

The  visual  recognition  of  a  familiar  phrase,  as  a  phrase, 
is  but  a  repetition  of  the  process  described  above,  the  rec- 
ognitions of  constituent  words  as  well  as  of  letters  in  this 
case  being  partially  inhibited  in  favor  of  the  total  recog- 
nition of  the  larger  unit.  Total  visual  form  seems  to  be  a 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  115 

less  important  factor  in  mediating  the  recognitions  as  the 
unit  grows  larger.  Unitary  recognition  of  phrases  is  very 
common  in  reading,  for  mentally  the  words  do  not  stand 
entirely  apart.  The  exigencies  of  printing  have  brought 
about  the  division  on  the  page  of  much  that  belongs  to- 
gether in  speech,  and  again  many  of  our  words  are  logi- 
cally phrases  and  might  be  printed  as  separate  words. 
The  psychological  process  of  apperceiving  these  words  or 
phrases  would  not  change  very  greatly  if  they  were  printed 
differently.  Very  many  compounds  are  written  sometimes 
as  separate  words,  sometimes  as  two  words  with  a  hyphen, 
again  as  a  single  word.  Indeed,  as  we  shall  see  elsewhere, 
the  usual  separation  even  of  words  upon  the  page,  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  came  very  late.  In  partial  disregard,  therefore, 
of  the  printer's  divisions,  there  is  naturally  a  gradual  prog- 
ress, with  practice,  toward  recognition  in  larger  units,  for 
those  who  learn  first  the  recognition  of  letters  and  words. 
Larger  and  larger  unitary  reactions  are  set  off  as  familiarity 
makes  this  possible,  the  same  excitations  coming  to  serve 
as  cues  for  the  larger  recognitions  instead  of  for  the  smaller, 
while  the  earlier  processes  or  recognition  habits,  even  when 
they  do  not  atrophy,  are  performed  automatically,  con- 
sciousness ever  tending  to  leave  them  for  higher  levels. 

We  must  remember,  however,  that  there  are  continual 
reversions  to  older  habits,  consciousness  descending  to  even 
the  level  of  letter-recognitions,  on  occasion,  and  very  often 
taking  account  of  particular  words.  Here  there  seem  to  be 


Il6  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

very  great  individual  differences,  and  these  depend  partly, 
although  never  wholly,  on  the  methods  by  which  the  reader 
has  learned  to  read.  We  are  brought  back  to  the  con- 
clusion of  Goldscheider  and  Miiller  that  we  read  by  phrases, 
words,  or  letters  as  we  may  serve  our  purpose  best.  But 
we  see,  too,  that  the  reader's  acquirement  of  ease  and 
power  in  reading  comes  through  increasing  ability  to  read 
in  larger  units. 

We  cannot  complete  our  account  of  visual  perception 
in  reading  until  we  have  first  taken  account  of  the  part 
played  by  inner  speech  and  by  the  consciousness  of  mean- 
ing. These  have  an  important  function  in  conditioning 
recognitions  in  reading.  Meaning,  indeed,  dominates  and 
unitizes  the  perception  of  words  and  phrases,  as  indeed, 
according  to  such  writers  as  Stout  at  least,  it  dominates 
all  perceptions.  Zeitler's  remark  will  be  remembered, 
that  the  word's  form  first  gets  anchored  or  established  as 
the  sense  is  filled  into  it.  This  appears  in  perceiving 
phrases  in  which  words  are  "seen"  which  are  not  there, 
but  which  make  sense.  The  excitations  from  the  page 
act  here  as  cues  to  a  meaning  which  reacts  in  the  pro- 
jection of  an  equivalent  expression.  As  for  the  inner 
vocalization  of  what  is  read,  we  shall  find  this,  too,  a 
powerful  factor  in  welding  together  what  is  seen,  and  in 
keeping  it  together  before  the  mind's  eye  until  the  full 
meaning  dawns.  It  will  be  our  next  task  to  take  account 
of  this  important  constituent  of  the  reading  process. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   INNER  SPEECH  OF  READING   AND  THE   MENTAL  AND 
PHYSICAL  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  SPEECH 

THE  fact  of  inner  speech  forming  a  part  of  silent  reading 
has  not  been  disputed,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  by  any  one 
who  has  experimentally  investigated  the  process  of  reading. 
Its  presence  has  been  established,  for  most  readers,  when 
adequate  tests  have  been  made.  Its  characteristics  and 
functions  have  been  variously  described  by  many  writers 
on  general  psychology  and  philosophy  and  on  the  psy- 
chology of  language. 

Purely  visual  reading  is  quite  possible,  theoretically; 
and  Secor,  in  a  study  made  at  Cornell  University,  found 
that  some  readers  could  read  visually  while  whistling  or 
doing  other  motor  tasks  that  would  hinder  inner  speech. 
We  might  perhaps  all  have  learned  a  sort  of  visual  reading, 
and  might  yet  require  ourselves  to  read  so  in  a  measure. 
But  although  there  is  an  occasional  reader  in  whom  the 
inner  speech  is  not  very  noticeable,  and  although  it  is  a 
foreshortened  and  incomplete  speech  in  most  of  us,  yet 
it  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  inner  hearing  or  pronounc- 
ing, or  both,  of  what  is  read,  is  a  constituent  part  of  the 
reading  of  by  far  the  most  of  people,  as  they  ordinarily 

117 


Il8  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

and  actually  read.  The  evidence  is  cumulative  from  many 
sources,  and  cannot  all  be  given  here,  but  there  is  no  doubt 
as  to  the  fact.  We  shall  here  consider  some  of  the  experi- 
ments which  throw  light  upon  the  presence  and  character 
of  this  inner  speech. 

In  the  writer's  own  experiments  in  which  single  unre- 
lated words  were  exposed  for  four  seconds  each,  the  reader 
to  state  just  what  was  suggested  as  he  saw  each,  the  words 
were  usually  "mentally  pronounced"  immediately  after 
or  accompanying  the  recognition  of  their  visual  form. 
When  other  words  or  phrases  were  suggested,  as  often 
occurred,  these  were  almost  always  mentally  pronounced. 
The  conjunctive  and  relational  words,  definitive  adjectives, 
etc.,  aroused  few  associations  other  than  verbal  ones,  the 
latter  usually  being  phrases  of  which  the  words  customarily 
form  a  part.  The  inner  pronunciation  of  these  words 
and  of  the  suggested  phrases  constituted  much  the  most 
prominent  part  of  the  reader's  consciousness  of  them. 
When  sense  matter  was  exposed  similarly,  giving  the 
reader  four  seconds  for  each  consecutive  word  or  phrase, 
the  words  and  phrases  were  almost  always  mentally  pro- 
nounced, and  usually  with  a  strong  feeling  that  they 
belonged  with  a  preceding  pronunciation  or  were  to  be 
followed  by  another,  or  both. 

In  another  series  of  experiments,  the  readers  read  equiv- 
alent pages  from  an  interesting  novel,  by  various  methods 
assigned  them.  Sometimes  the  instructions  were  to  read 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  IIQ 

"the  way  you  like  to  read";  sometimes  they  were  to  "say 
it  all  to  themselves" ;  again  they  "read  aloud " ;  then  they 
thought  of  "how  it  would  sound  "  as  they  read ;  and  some- 
times they  were  directed  to  use  lip-movement.  Some- 
times the  readings  were  at  the  ordinary  and  most  comfort- 
able speed,  and  again  they  would  be  as  fast  as  possible. 
The  time  required  for  the  reading  of  each  page  was  care- 
fully taken  and  will  be  referred  to  in  discussing  the  rate 
of  reading.  In  many  cases  these  experiments  brought  the 
readers  to  an  awareness  of  their  inner  speech  in  reading 
when  this  had  gone  unnoticed  before.  When  asked  tc 
say  the  words  over  to  themselves,  they  found  that  really 
this  was  what  they  had  been  doing  all  along  in  their 
ordinary  reading,  and  was  the  one  thing  that  they  could  not 
escape  doing  when  they  tried.  In  such  cases,  the  time  re- 
quired for  reading  a  page  in  the  assigned  way  would  be 
nearly  the  same  as  when  the  page  was  read  "the  way  you 
like  to  read."  In  the  same  way  the  reader's  habit  of  hear- 
ing the  sound  of  what  he  read,  or  of  using  lip-movement, 
etc.,  was  often  revealed.  Of  nearly  thirty  adults  who  were 
thus  tested,  the  large  majority  found  inner  speech  in  some 
form  to  be  a  part  of  their  ordinary  reading.  Purely  visual 
reading  was  not  established  for  any  of  the  readers,  although 
the  test  did  not  show  that  it  was  not  present  for  a  few. 
Motorizing  with  lips  closed  at  the  "comfortable"  speed 
gave  nearly  the  same  average  rate  as  when  the  reading 
was  by  the  reader's  "own  method,"  5.29  words  per  second 


120  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

for  the  former  and  5.35  for  the  latter,  for  twenty  readers 
tested.  Of  twenty  post-graduate  students  who  were  tested, 
but  two  or  three  used  lip-movement  when  reading  "as 
they  liked."  Many  of  the  others  who  "motorized"  said 
that  the  pronunciation  was  "up  in  the  head,"  and  it  usually 
seemed  to  be  without  any  very  noticeable  movements  of  the 
articulatory  apparatus. 

For  the  readers  tested  in  these  experiments  it  seemed 
that  the  inner  speech  was  a  combination  of  auditory  and 
motor  elements,  with  one  or  the  other  predominating  ac- 
cording to  the  reader's  habitual  mode  of  imaging.  Some- 
times when  the  inner  speech  was  very  prominent  it  was 
difficult  for  the  reader  to  say  whether  it  was  auditory  or 
motor,  although  it  seemed  to  him  to  be  of  but  one  kind. 
The  fact  is  that  what  we  say  is  always  heard  as  well,  and 
there  comes  to  be  an  indissoluble  union  of  the  auditory 
and  motor  elements.  Our  hearing,  too,  has  an  active 
aspect  which  may  go  so  far  as  to  include  an  inner  saying, 
or  imitation,  of  what  is  heard.  And  so  the  auditory  and 
motor  types  of  readers  are  really  apt  to  be  audito-motor 
types,  with  one  or  the  other  aspect  leading  in  many  cases. 

That  the  speech  of  silent  reading  is  simpler  than  in 
reading  aloud  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  it  was  faster  for 
each  of  the  readers  tested,  both  when  the  reading  was  at 
normal  speed  and  when  it  was  as  fast  as  possible.  Read- 
ing aloud  was  66  per  cent  slower  than  reading  silently, 
at  the  normal  rate,  and  56  per  cent  slower  at  the  maximal 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  121 

rate,  on  an  average  for  twenty  readers.  In  reading  aloud, 
as  in  talking,  generally,  the  words  are  practically  all 
pronounced  as  the  breath  is  expired,  and  there  are  pauses 
at  the  inspirations.  The  inner  speech  of  reading,  on  the 
other  hand,  goes  on  during  inspiration  as  well,  and  thus 
time  is  saved.  Then,  as  Professor  Dodge  shows  in  his 
"Die  Motorische  Wortvorstellungen,"  the  inner  articu- 
lations do  not  call  into  play  the  chest  and  larynx  muscles 
that  are  used  in  speaking  aloud,  and  there  is  a  shortening 
of  the  pronunciation,  a  slurring  of  the  words,  and  in- 
deed the  omission  of  many  for  some  readers.  Professor 
Dodge  states  that  in  his  own  ordinary  silent  reading  almost 
every  word  is  pronounced,  but  that  in  his  fastest  silent 
reading  only  the  beginnings  of  words  are  pronounced. 
In  his  fastest  reading  of  very  familiar  matter  only  cer- 
tain words  were  pronounced.  His  speed  of  reading 
seems  to  be  determined  by  the  speed  with  which  his  mo- 
tor word- ideas  can  follow  one  another.  He  finds,  as  I 
have  found,  that  auditory  elements  are  present  in  the 
reading  of  those  who  motorize,  and  that  those  who  audit- 
ize  are  apt  to  have  more  or  less  of  the  motor  present. 

Zeitler  and  Messmer  did  not  investigate  the  inner  speech 
of  reading,  but  Messmer  asserts  that  "in  visual  reading 
the  auditory  and  motor  centres  work  along,"  and  that 
purely  visual  reading  is  normally  not  to  be  found. 

Quantz  found  lip-movement,  and  consequently  inner 
speech,  to  be  universal  in  the  early  reading  of  children. 


122  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

The  lip-movement  decreases  with  practice  and  usually, 
although  not  always,  disappears  in  the  rapid  and  more  in- 
telligent readers.  He  found  that  "lip-movement  in  silent 
reading  is  not  an  acquired  habit,  but  a  reflex  action,  the 
physical  tendency  to  which  is  inherited."  "It  is  a  specific 
manifestation  of  the  general  psycho-physical  law  of  dyna- 
mogenesis  by  which  every  mental  state  tends  to  express  it- 
self in  muscular  movement."  Reading  without  lip-move- 
ment is  "an  acquired  habit,"  the  natural  thing  being  to  use 
the  lips,  as  almost  all  of  us  do  in  practice  when  we  come  to 
a  difficult  place  requiring  close  attention. 

My  own  observations  indicate  that  the  disappearance 
of  the  lip-movement  is  no  indication  of  the  absence  of 
inner  speech  in  reading.  In  my  own  case,  the  lips  are 
seldom  moved,  but  I  can  never  escape  the  inner  pronun- 
ciation that  forms  a  part  of  all  my  reading. 

It  would  be  easy  to  quote  authority  almost  endlessly  for 
the  presence  of  inner  speech  in  reading  and,  indeed,  in 
most  thinking.  The  simple  fact  is  that  the  inner  saying 
or  hearing  of  what  is  read  seems  to  be  the  core  of  ordinary 
reading,  the  "thing  in  itself,"  so  far  as  there  is  such  a  part 
of  such  a  complex  process.  It  is  so  in  all  use  of  language. 
The  spoken  language  is  the  language  par  excellence,  as 
Professor  Whitney  says  in  his  "Life  and  Growth  of  Lan- 
guage," "gesture  and  writing  being  its  subordinates  and 
auxiliaries."  The  child  comes  to  his  first  reader  with  his 
habits  of  spoken  language  fairly  well  formed,  and  these 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  123 

habits  grow  more  deeply  set  with  every  year.  His  mean- 
ings inhere  in  this  spoken  language  and  belong  but  sec- 
ondarily to  the  printed  symbols;  and  always,  for  most 
readers,  we  can  say  with  M.  Egger  that  "to  read  is,  in 
effect,  to  translate  writing  into  speech."  And  while  this 
inner  speech  is  but  an  abbreviated  and  reduced  form 
of  the  speech  of  everyday  life,  a  shadow  copy  as  it  were, 
it  nevertheless  retains  the  essential  characteristics  of  the 
original.  In  order,  therefore,  to  understand  the  inner 
speech  of  reading  and  its  relation  to  the  interpretative  pro- 
cesses, it  will  be  necessary  to  examine  briefly  the  nature  of 
speech  generally,  and  its  relation  to  thought  and  meaning. 
Language  begins  with  the  sentence,  and  this  is  the  unit 
of  language  everywhere.  A  sentence  is  a  unitary  expres- 
sion of  a  thought.  A  thought  may  be  expressed  in  a  word 
sometimes,  and  this  is  then  a  sentence-word,  as  when 
Preyer's  child  put  his  milk  cup  down  quickly  and  said 
"Hot!"  This  single  word  was  to  signify,  "This  drink 
is  too  hot."  It  was  "a  whole  proposition  in  a  syllable," 
as  Preyer  says.  The  meaning  that  might  have  suggested 
"This  drink  is  too  hot"  and  that  would  have  bathed  every 
part  of  it  as  spoken,  suggested  only  "Hot "  as  its  expression, 
with  this  child  who  yet  knew  but  little  of  language.  But 
there  was  more  than  the  articulated  word.  The  pitch, 
accent,  modulation  of  voice,  which  characterize  a  sentence- 
word's  pronunciation,  are  important  factors  in  expressing 
the  particular  unitary  meaning  that  is  felt.  "Papa"  may 


124  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

mean  "Come  here,  papa,"  "Look  out,  papa,"  "Please 
do,  papa,"  according  to  variations  in  the  tone,  etc.,  and 
according  to  the  situation  context.  Often  the  modulation, 
accent,  or  rhythm  are  more  expressive  of  the  speaker's 
meaning  than  are  the  words  as  such,  and  the  former 
factors  belong  to  the  sentence  as  a  whole. 

The  child,  the  primitive  man,  and  indeed  any  speaker, 
when  he  would  form  a  sentence,  begins  with  a  meaning, 
a  total  idea,  as  Wundt  calls  it,  which  he  would  express. 
This  total  idea  is  at  first  little  differentiated  and  may  find 
expression  in  a  gesture,  a  tone,  or  a  word,  as  when  the 
earnestly  spoken  "Hot"  was  all  that  came.  With  more 
experience  this  total  idea  or  consciousness  situation,  of 
being  burned  with  milk,  falls  apart  somewhat  into  the  sub- 
notions milk — this — hot— drink,  and  gets  a  correspond- 
ingly analyzed  expression  in  these  several  words,  these 
expressing  still,  however,  one  unitary  meaning.  The  part 
of  the  total  idea  that  is  most  prominent  in  consciousness  is 
apt  to  be  expressed  first,  and  in  child  speech,  as  with 
many  primitive  tribes,  the  words  may  come  in  any  order 
according  as  the  various  aspects  of  the  total  idea  suc- 
cessively become  prominent  in  the  speaker's  mind. 

The  child's  language,  however,  is  not  an  invention,  but 
is  learned  by  imitation ;  and  he  accepts,  in  English,  certain 
fixed  habits  of  breaking  up  the  total  ideas  into  parts  that 
are  expressed  in  parts  of  speech,  such  as  nouns,  verbs, 
adjectives,  etc.  Certain  habitual  sequences  of  these  parts 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  I2«, 

are  also  learned  by  imitation  and  his  words  come  to  fall 
into  this  habitual  order.  Thus,  beginning  with  a  total 
meaning  and  a  total  intention  of  expressing  this  meaning, 
the  development  is  toward  a  more  and  more  particular 
division  of  it  into  aspects  or  parts,  and  toward  the  expres- 
sion of  these  parts  in  words  that  are  arranged  in  gram- 
matical sequence,  this  arranging  and  indeed  the  whole 
development  being  largely  automatic,  the  result  of  asso- 
ciative habits  learned  gradually  by  experience  and  by 
imitation.  But  meaning  leads,  and  the  idea  of  the  whole 
dominates  the  parts.  The  sentence  is  not  naturally  com- 
posed of  words  which  originally  existed  independently, 
just  as  we  shall  find  that  the  word  is  not  a  mere  collection 
of  syllables  and  letters. 

In  the  ancient  languages  a  single  expression  would 
often  be  word  and  sentence  together.  Wundt  says  in  his 
"  Volker-Psychologie  "  1:  "The  Latin  amavi  is  both  word 
and  sentence.  The  Romance  languages  resolve  this 
thought  into  three  words,  ego  habeo  amatum,  fai  aime. 
Accordingly,  if  we  compare,  on  the  one  hand,  languages  of 
an  evidently  more  primitive  development  with  those  that 
are  more  developed,  and  if  on  the  other  hand  we  compare 
the  earlier  with  the  later  stages  of  one  and  the  same  lan- 
guage, the  differentiation  of  the  parts  of  speech  every- 
where shows  itself  as  the  process  of  gradually  resolving 
the  word  out  of  the  whole  to  which  it  belongs ;  namely,  the 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  561. 


126  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

sentence,  —  the  process  which  lends  the  word  a  relatively 
greater  independence  and  fixes  its  grammatical  form  at  the 
same  time  with  its  independent  significance."  There  exist 
to-day  languages  in  which  the  sentences  are  spoken  with- 
out differentiation  of  either  words  or  parts  of  speech,  in  a 
continuum  of  syllable  sounds,  or  it  might  be  said  that  the 
sentence  is  one  long  word.  Our  English  and  the  kindred 
languages  have  made  the  analysis  into  parts  of  speech, 
words,  etc.,  and  our  fashion  of  printing  has  made  us  very 
conscious  of  the  results  of  this  analysis.  But  in  the  living 
speech  of  conversation  and  thought  these  parts  still  inhere 
organically  in  the  original  sentence-wholes,  and  the  actual 
structure  is  very  different  from  the  written  or  printed  ex- 
pression, as  we  shall  presently  see. 

Genetically,  then,  as  we  might  go  on  to  show,  the 
growth  of  living  speech  both  in  the  race  and  in  the 
child  has  been  from  the  protoplasm  of  total  meanings 
expressed  in  sentence- wholes,  through  a  progressive  anal- 
ysis to  parts  of  speech  and  words,  then  to  syllables  and 
to  elementary  sounds.  We  shall  later  trace  the  anal- 
ogous development  of  the  written  and  printed  characters 
from  primitive  picture- wholes  to  characters  representative 
of  word-meanings,  word-sounds,  and  finally  to  symbols 
for  syllables  and  for  elementary  sounds.  Let  us  now  look 
more  nearly  at  the  processes  that  go  on  as  we  speak  our 
English  sentences  to-day. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  certain  that  in  ordinary  speech 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING  127 

some  thought  of  the  whole  sentence  pervades  every  part 
as  the  part  is  spoken,  and  the  part  is  felt  in  a  perspective 
of  the  whole.  This  is  true  of  the  sentence's  beginning  as 
well  as  of  its  other  parts,  and  some  consciousness  of  the 
whole  usually  precedes  even  the  initial  utterance.  Says 
Wundt  in  the  volume  mentioned  (p.  563):  "At  the  mo- 
ment in  which  I  begin  a  sentence  the  whole  of  it  stands 
already  in  my  consciousness  as  a  total  idea."  Wundt 
adds,  however,  that  the  sentence  is  then  felt  only  in  its 
main  outlines,  its  constituent  parts  being  at  first  dark,  but 
coming  out  as  the  speaking  goes  on.  "The  process,"  he 
says,  "is  something  like  the  sudden  lighting  of  a  complex 
picture,  where  one  at  first  has  only  a  general  impression 
of  the  whole,  and  then  successively  of  the  particular  parts, 
always  seen  in  their  relations  to  the  whole."  Only  thus, 
Wundt  thinks,  can  we  explain  the  fact  of  a  speaker  going 
correctly  through  with  a  complex  sentence  without  having 
reflected  on  it  before. 

The  total  idea  of  what  is  to  be  said  thus  exists  hi 
consciousness  precedent  to  the  utterance,  and  dominates 
the  utterance  throughout.  This  total  idea  is  not  &  mere 
sum  of  associations,  but  is  an  apperceptive  unity.  This 
unity  becomes  differentiated  in  the  manner  and  in  the 
direction  indicated  in  its  sentence  expression,  and  the 
sentence  is,  according  to  Wundt,  "the  analysis  into  its 
parts  of  a  whole  that  is  present  in  consciousness."  Ac- 
cordingly, he  says,  sentence  formation  is  analytical,  as  it 


128  THE   PSYCHOLOGY    OF    READING 

is  a  separation  of  the  parts  of  a  whole,  but  it  is  also  syn- 
thetic in  that  it  is  an  appearance  of  part  after  part  in  the 
focus  of  consciousness.  "Above  all,  however,"  he  adds, 
"it  is  an  analytical  process."  1 

Again,  Wundt  considers  the  sentence  to  be  a  "voluntary 
act,"  willed  as  a  whole.  True,  it  is  a  complex  act,  but  the 
constituent  movements  of  articulation,  etc.,  go  off  auto- 
matically like  the  constituent  movements  of  any  other 
unitary  performance.  We  "give  the  direction  to  the 
thought"  and  "the  requisite  words  stream  to  us  of  them- 
selves"; that  is,  "they  are  awakened  associatively  from 
the  first-excited  word-ideas  under  the  influence  of  the 
total  idea  that  is  present." 

"Psychologically  considered  the  sentence  is  therefore 
at  the  same  time  both  a  simultaneous  and  a  successive 
whole  —  a  simultaneous  since  in  every  moment  of  its  for- 
mation it  is  in  consciousness  in  its  entire  extent,  although 
particular  secondary  elements  may  occasionally  disappear 
from  this ;  a  successive,  since  the  whole  changes  from  mo- 
ment to  moment  in  its  consciousness  content  while  definite 
ideas  one  after  the  other  appear  in  the  focus  and  the  others 
grow  darker."  2 

Professor  James  bases  his  psychology  of  the  sentence  on 
his  view  of  consciousness  as  a  continuous  stream  of  pro- 
cesses in  which  "breaks  are  produced  by  sudden  contrasts 
in  the  quality  of  the  successive  segments."  Conscious- 

1 "  Volker  Psychologic,"  Vol.  II,  p.  236.       z  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.  236  ff. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  I2Q 

ness  makes  us  aware  of  things,  and  things,  being  discrete 
and  discontinuous,  "pass  before  us  in  a  train  or  chain, 
making  often  explosive  appearances  and  rending  each  other 
in  twain."  But  these  do  not  break  the  flow  of  the  thought 
that  thinks  them,  with  its  continuum  of  feelings,  bodily 
sensations,  etc.  There  are,  however,  the  apparent  breaks, 
which  are  really  "transitive  places,"  places  of  rapid  flow, 
of  flight  from  the  perch  of  one  substantive  resting-place 
to  that  of  another,  —  to  a  conclusion  perhaps  or  to  a  place 
in  which  the  thought  may  bask  in  sensorial  imagery.  The 
consciousness  life  is  like  a  bird's  life,  made  up  of  an  alter- 
nation of  flights  and  perchings.  "  The  rhythm  of  language 
expresses  this,  where  every  thought  is  expressed  in  a  sen- 
tence and  every  sentence  closed  by  a  period." 

The  places  of  flight  are  filled  with  thoughts  of  relations, 
static  or  dynamic,  obtaining  between  the  matters  con- 
templated in  the  periods  of  comparative  rest.  Our 
thoughts  and  sentences  are  largely  made  up  of  these  fugi- 
tive transitional  processes,  and  are  thus  extremely  hard 
to  introspect.  To  attempt  cutting  such  a  sentence  in  the 
middle  to  get  a  look  at  it  is,  in  James'  figure,  like  catching 
a  snow-flake  crystal  in  the  warm  hand.  The  flake  is  no 
longer  a  crystal,  but  a  drop.  "So,  instead  of  catching  the 
feeling  of  relation  moving  to  its  term,  we  find  we  have 
caught  some  substantive  thing,  usually  the  last  word  we 
were  pronouncing,  statically  taken,  and  with  its  function, 
tendency,  and  particular  meaning  in  the  sentence  quite 


130  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

evaporated."  It  is  like  "seizing  a  spinning  top  to  catch 
its  motion,  or  trying  to  turn  up  the  gas  quickly  enough  to 
see  how  the  darkness  looks."  To  these  feelings  of  rela- 
tion, expressed  or  named  by  such  words  as  and,  if,  but, 
and  the  like,  far  oftener  not  named  but  felt  as  the  sentence 
moves  forward,  we  will  return  when  discussing  interpre- 
tative processes  in  reading. 

According  to  Professor  James,  the  speaker  has  "an 
intention  of  saying  a  thing  before  he  has  said  it,"  "an 
entirely  definite  intention  distinct  from  all  other  intentions, 
an  absolutely  distinct  state  of  consciousness  therefore,  but 
with  little  sensorial  imagery,  —  that  welcomes  right  words 
as  they  come  and  rejects  wrong  ones."  "  One  must  admit 
that  a  good  third  of  our  psychic  life  consists  in  these  rapid 
premonitory  perspective  views  of  schemes  of  thought 
not  yet  articulate.  How  comes  it  about  that  a  man 
reading  something  aloud  for  the  first  time  is  able  im- 
mediately to  emphasize  all  his  words  aright,  unless  from 
the  very  first  he  have  a  sense  of  at  least  the  form  of  the  sen- 
tence yet  to  come,  which  sense  is  fused  with  his  conscious- 
ness of  the  present  word,  and  modifies  its  emphasis  in  his 
mind  so  as  to  make  him  give  it  the  proper  accent  as  he 
utters  it?  Emphasis  of  this  kind  is  almost  altogether  a 
matter  of  grammatical  construction.  If  we  read  no  more, 
we  expect  presently  to  come  upon  a  than;  if  we  read  how- 
ever at  the  outset  of  a  sentence,  it  is  a  yet,  a  still,  or  a  never- 
theless, that  we  expect.  A  noun  in  a  certain  position 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 


demands  a  verb  in  a  certain  mood  and  number,  in  another 
position  it  expects  a  relative  pronoun.  Adjectives  call 
for  nouns,  verbs  for  adverbs,  etc.  And  this  foreboding 
of  the  coming  grammatical  scheme  combined  with  each 
successive  uttered  word  is  so  practically  accurate  that  a 
Dreader  incapable  of  understanding  four  ideas  of  the  book 
he  is  reading  aloud  can  nevertheless  read  it  with  the  most 
delicately  modulated  expression  of  intelligence."  1 

In  regarding  the  sentence  as  a  total  unity  felt  throughout 
as  each  part  is  uttered,  and  indeed  in  a  measure  existing  in 
consciousness  precedent  to  any  utterance,  James  is  in 
agreement  with  Wundt.  "Even  before  we  have  opened 
our  mouths  to  speak,"  James  says,  "the  entire  thought  is 
present  to  our  mind  in  the  form  of  an  intention  to  utter 
that  sentence."  Again,  "after  the  last  word  of  the  sen- 
tence is  spoken,  all  will  admit  that  we  again  think  its  entire 
content  as  we  inwardly  realize  its  completed  deliverance." 


1  28 

The  Pack  of  Cards  is  on  the  Table. 
FIG.  14 


*-       0' 


James'  diagram,  reproduced  here,  represents  the  prog- 
ress of  consciousness  throughout  the  utterance  of  such 
a  sentence  as,  "The  pack  of  cards  is  on  the  table," 

1  "Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  253-254. 


132  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

the  horizontal  line  representing  time,  the  spaces  above 
representing  the  consciousness  content  during  this  time. 
Not  only  is  the  total  thought  of  the  sentence  present  at  its 
beginning  and  at  its  end,  but  "all  vertical  sections  made 
through  any  other  parts  of  the  diagram  will  be  respectively 
filled  with  other  ways  of  feeling  the  sentence's  meaning, 
Through  2,  for  example,  the  cards  will  be  the  part  of  the 
object  most  emphatically  present  to  the  mind ;  through  4, 
the  table.  The  stream  is  made  higher  in  the  drawing  at 
its  end  than  at  its  beginning,  because  the  final  way  of 
feeling  the  content  is  fuller  and  richer  than  the  initial  way. 
As  Joubert  says, '  we  only  know  just  what  we  meant  to  say, 
after  we  have  said  it.'  And  as  M.  V.  Egger  remarks, 
'  before  speaking  one  barely  knows  what  one  intends  to  say, 
but  afterward  one  is  filled  with  admiration  and  surprise 
at  having  said  and  thought  it  so  well."  The  same  object 
of  thought  or  total  idea  is  "known  everywhere  now  from 
the  point  of  view,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  of  this  word,  now 
from  the  point  of  view  of  that.  And  in  our  feeling  of 
each  word  there  chimes  an  echo  or  foretaste  of  every 
other." 

The  total  idea  is  "  the  overtone,  halo,  or  fringe  of  the 
word  as  spoken  in  that  sentence.  It  is  never  absent;  no 
word  in  an  understood  sentence  comes  to  consciousness 
as  a  mere  noise.  We  feel  its  meaning  as  it  passes;  and 
although  our  object  differs  from  one  moment  to  another 
as  to  its  verbal  kernel  or  nucleus,  yet  it  is  similar 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  133 

throughout  the  entire  segment  of  the  stream."  Cut 
a  thought  in  cross- section  at  any  moment  of  its  utter- 
ance, and  "you  will  find,  not  the  bald  word  in  process 
of  utterance,  but  that  word  suffused  with  the  whole 
idea."  1 

I  have  quoted  at  length  the  words  and  figures  of  Professor 
James,  as  giving  the  most  nearly  correct  and  most  graphic 
view  that  is  yet  obtainable  of  the  organic  unity  of  the 
sentence  with  its  subordinated  word-parts,  on  the  side  of 
consciousness  and  meaning.  On  the  side  of  physical 
utterance  the  articulatory  processes  have  been  carefully 
analyzed  and  described,  and  here,  too,  the  organic  unity 
of  the  sentence-utterance  and  the  subordination  of  the 
partial  processes  to  this  whole  have  been  established  beyond 
a  doubt.  The  painstaking  analysis  made  at  Yale  Uni- 
versity, by  Dr.  Wallin  and  Professor  Scripture,  of  sentences 
spoken  into  a  graphophone  arranged  for  the  purpose, 
have  given  us  an  especially  accurate  account  of  what  we  do 
when  we  talk,  and  the  studies  of  various  eminent  philolo- 
gists corroborate  their  results.  We  shall  therefore  find  it 
profitable  to  review  the  facts  concerning  speech  as  a  me- 
chanical process. 

The  utterance  of  even  a  single  word  requires  the  co- 
ordinated action  of  three  distinct  and  very  different  groups 
of  muscles.  The  breath  is  forced  outward  and  regulated 
by  the  action  of  the  large  muscles  of  respiration  of  the  chest 
1 "  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  243  ff. 


134  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

and  abdomen.  The  sound  is  produced  by  the  action  of 
the  muscles  of  the  larynx,  tensing  and  controlling  the  two 
vocal  cords  or  bands  between  whose  edges  the  air  passes. 
The  particular  character  which  the  sound  has  when  uttered 
as  vowel  or  consonant,  the  articulation  as  it  is  called,  is 
produced  by  the  action  of  the  muscles  of  the  tongue  and 
jaw  and  palate.  Indeed,  most  of  the  other  muscles  of  the 
body  are  involved  in  the  movements  of  expression,  ges- 
ture, posture,  etc.,  which  always  form  a  constituent  part 
of  speech  as  it  is  actually  spoken. 

Professor  Scripture,  in  his  "Elements  of  Experimental 
Phonetics,"  finds  that  this  complex  machinery  for  vocal 
utterance  is  in  continuous  action  throughout  the  utterance 
of  any  word  or  phrase,  with  no  interruptions  such  as  letters, 
syllables,  or  even  words  suggest.  "The  word  manly 
represents  continuous  action  of  the  breath  organs,  con- 
tinuous action  of  the  vocal  cords,  with  a  smooth  rise  and 
fall  of  pitch,  continuous  movement  of  the  lips,  tongue, 
and  velum,  through  various  positions."  "  In  fact,  the  word 
is  a  continuous  sound  change,  with  no  limits  or  minima 
of  any  noticeable  kind."  The  word  is  to  be  considered 
as  a  fusion  of  a  series  of  continuous  changes,  certain  stages 
of  which  may  be  characterized  as  "m-n-l-i,  etc.  As  far 
as  the  vocal  movements  are  concerned  the  word  is  just  as 
continuous  as  manned."  "I  do  not  believe  a  division  of 
the  flow  of  speech  into  separate  blocks  termed  syllables 
has  the  slightest  justification  or  the  slightest  phonetic 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  135 

meaning."  "A  word  is  a  continuous  series  of  an  infinite 
number  of  sounds,  and  the  letters  indicate,  in  an  incomplete 
fashion,  nothing  more  than  certain  characteristic  points 
of  this  series."  Even  single  vowel  sounds  were  found 
to  vary  constantly  in  pitch,  in  talking  though  not  in 
singing. 

It  is  true  that,  for  the  listener,  there  are  really  brief  in- 
terruptions or  moments  of  silence,  not  noticed  as  such, 
however;  but  "the  motor  activity  of  the  speech  organs 
goes  on  just  as  vigorously  during  the  occlusion  (silence) 
as  before  and  after."  The  lips,  tongue,  etc.,  do  not  assume 
fixed  positions  at  any  moment,  and  "it  seems  therefore 
somewhat  artificial  to  divide  the  words  who'll, "  e.g.,  "  into 
three  or  five  sounds ;  we  may  preferably  say  that  for  the 
sake  of  discussion  five  stages  in  the  changing  sound  may 
be  picked  out  as  typical  of  the  whole  process."  Professor 
Scripture  likens  this  to  taking  kinetoscope  pictures  of  a 
runner,  treating  his  whole  movement  as  a  series  of  positions 
in  which  the  runner  remains  at  rest.  "  This  treatment  has 
its  advantages  for  certain  cases,  but  we  should  never  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  the  true  movement  occurs  otherwise." 
Not  only  is  the  utterance  of  a  single  word  found  to  be  such 
a  unitary  and  indivisible  act,  but  the  experimenters  find 
that  words  are  not  separated  as  they  are  spoken  in  sen- 
tences. Indeed,  Professor  Scripture  asserts  that  "speech 
is  a  flow  of  auditory  and  motor  energy  with  no  possibility 
of  division  into  separate  blocks  such  as  letters,  syllables, 


136  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

words,  feet,  etc.,  except  in  a  purely  arbitrary  manner  that 
does  not  represent  the  actual  case."  1 

Professor  Sweet,  the  English  philologist,  in  his  "Primer 
of  Phonetics"  says:  "The  only  division  actually  made  in 
language  is  that  into  'breath-groups.'  We  are  unable  to 
utter  more  than  a  certain  number  of  sounds  in  succession 
without  renewing  the  stock  of  air  in  our  lungs.  These 
breath-groups  correspond  partially  to  the  logical  division 
into  sentences ;  every  sentence  is  necessarily  a  breath-group, 
but  every  breath-group  need  not  be  a  complete  sentence. 

"  Within  each  breath-group  there  is  no  pause  whatever, 
notwithstanding  the  popular  idea  that  we  make  a  pause 
between  every  two  words.  Thus  in  such  a  sentence  as 
put  on  your  fiat,  we  hear  clearly  the  '  recoil '  or  final  breath- 
glide  which  follows  the  final  /  of  hat,  b.ut  the  /  of  put  runs 
on  to  the  following  vowel  without  any  recoil,  exactly  as  in 
the  single  word  putting.  In  put  back  there  is  no  glide  at 
all  after  the  /." 

The  inhalation  pauses  afford  momentary  opportunity 
for  rest,  to  both  speaker  and  listener.  The  average  num- 
ber of  syllables  uttered  between  pauses  was  found  by  Wallin 
to  be  about  six,  for  reading  prose,  with  a  "range"  of  1.85 
syllables.  However,  on  an  average  about  thirty-two  times 
this  average  number  of  syllables  could  be  uttered  at  one 
exhalation.  Wallin  found  that  in  impassioned  speech 
this  maximum  was  most  nearly  reached. 

S 

1  "  Experimental  Phonetics,"  pp.  279-593. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  137 

But  if  the  spoken  sentence  is,  except  for  inhalation 
pauses,  an  unbroken  continuum  as  uttered,  it  is  by  no 
means  an  even  or  monotonous  continuum,  in  natural 
living  speech.  There  is  a  continual  rise  and  fall  of  pitch 
and  energy  and  a  variation  in  quantity,  producing  a  rhythm 
and  melody  of  speech  that  is  as  characteristic  and  con- 
stant for  prose  as  for  verse,  but  not  so  marked.  Indeed, 
when  Dr.  Wallin  had  persons  read  prose  printed  as  poetry 
and  poetry  printed  as  prose,  in  a  large  number  of  cases 
they  were  unable  to  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other. 
The  poems  of  Browning  and  Tennyson  were  called  prose 
and  the  prose  of  Bacon  was  called  poetry. 

Certain  variations  in  force  or  stress,  in  the  continuous 
flow  of  speech,  give  the  effect,  as  Sweet  says,  of  its  being 
broken  up  into  syllables,  even  when  there  is  not  the  slight- 
est pause.  The  vowels  are  the  more  sonorous  sounds 
and  thus  help  to  make  the  syllable  divisions.  A  vowel  is 
"  voiced  breath,  modified  by  some  definite  configuration  of 
the  superglottal  passages,  but  without  audible  friction 
which  would  make  it  a  consonant."  In  other  words,  "a 
vowel  is  voice  modified  by  a  resonance  chamber,  to  wit 
the  mouth."  "Consonants,"  Sweet  continues,  "are  the 
result  of  audible  friction  or  stopping  of  the  breath  in 
some  part  of  the  mouth  or  throat.  The  main  distinc- 
tion between  vowels  and  consonants  is  that  while  in  vowels 
the  mouth  configuration  merely  modifies  the  vocalized 
breath  —  which  is  therefore  an  essential  element  of  them 


138  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

—  in  consonants  the  narrowing  or  stopping  of  the  mouth 
passage  is  the  foundation  of  the  sound,  and  the  state  of 
the  glottis  is  something  secondary."  "Consonants  can 
therefore  be  breathed  as  well  as  voiced,  the  mouth  con- 
figuration alone  being  enough  to  produce  a  distinction 
without  the  help  of  voice.  All  consonants  can  be  whis- 
pered." Between  the  consonants  and  the  vowels  are  glides, 
— "transitional  sounds,  produced  during  the  transition 
from  one  sound  to  another,"  the  written  letters  repre- 
senting, as  we  have  seen,  but  a  portion  of  the  sounds 
actually  uttered. 

So  the  ear  "learns  to  divide  a  breath-group  into  groups 
of  vowels  (or  vowel  equivalents,  as  the  sonorous  /  in 
cattle),  each  flanked  by  consonants  (or  consonant  equiva- 
lents)," giving  a  division  into  syllables. 

Sometimes  variations  in  stress  may  suggest  word -division, 
but  often,  and  regularly  in  French,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  word-stress  or  word-division.  In  French,  says  Sweet, 
the  "sentences  are  cut  up  into  syllables  without  any  re- 
gard to  the  structure  of  the  words  they  are  made  up  of."  * 

The  sound  of  any  letter,  therefore,  and  the  movements 
necessary  to  produce  it,  depend  partly  upon  the  context 
hi  which  the  letter  stands.  The  sound  that  occurs  in 
context  cannot  usually  be  given  in  isolation,  and  in  any 
case  the  vocal  movements  used  for  its  isolated  production 
are  different,  often  very  different,  from  the  corresponding 

1  Sweet's  "  Primer  of  Phonetics,"  selections  from  various  parts. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  139 

movements  in  the  continuous  utterance  of  a  word  or  sen- 
tence. Similarly,  a  word  sounded  alone  is  somewhat 
different  in  sound  and  in  the  vocal  movements  required 
than  when  spoken  as  part  of  a  sentence ;  and  a  sentence 
whose  words  are  uttered  each  for  itself  has,  as  we  all 
know,  a  sound  that  is  very  different  from  the  sound  of  a 
sentence  uttered  as  such. 

Indeed  the  action  in  uttering  a  sentence  is  of  the  same 
kind  as  in  skating,  dancing,  throwing  a  ball,  or  any  such 
unitary  complex  of  muscular  movements.  In  throwing 
a  ball,  for  instance,  there  is  the  sub-movement  of  grasp- 
ing the  ball,  itself  quite  complex ;  there  is  the  raising  and 
poising  of  the  arm,  with  all  the  coordination  needed  for 
this  performance,  and  there  is  the  complicated  final  act 
of  throwing.  Now  the  grasping  and  poising  and  throw- 
ing might  each  be  performed  separately,  with  full  atten- 
tion directed  to  itself.  But  who  thinks  of  these  separate 
movements  as  he  aims  and  throws?  The  meaning  of 
the  total  act,  viz.  the  hitting  of  the  mark,  guides  and 
controls  and  unitizes  all,  and  renders  each  movement 
different  from  what  it  would  be  alone.  Each  subordinate 
movement  is  made  in  a  perspective  of  the  whole,  just  as, 
in  perceiving,  the  consciousness  of  the  part  is  profoundly 
modified  by  the  consciousness  of  the  whole.  We  have 
already  seen  how  meaning  welds  the  parts  of  a  sentence 
into  unity.  We  see  now  how  the  necessities  of  physical 
utterance  contribute  to  the  same  end. 


140  THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING 

A  main  force  tending  to  unitize  the  sentence  both 
physically  and  psychically  is  the  alternation  of  stresses, 
the  rise  and  fall  of  pitch,  and  the  variations  in  quantity, 
already  referred  to  as  factors  in  producing  the  rhythm, 
melody,  and  emphasis  of  speech.  The  total  sentence- 
meaning  inheres  vitally  and  comes  most  to  expression 
in  these  characteristic  variations  in  the  sentence-flow. 
They  are  the  life  of  the  sentence,  and  give  it  its  character- 
stamp.  And  these  variations  belong  to  the  sentence  as 
a  whole,  those  made  in  one  part  having  reference  to  those 
made  in  another,  and  all  having  a  unitary  significance. 
The  written  or  printed  representations  of  speech  make  no 
record  of  these  its  vital  parts,  except  for  an  occasional 
use  of  italics,  underscoring,  or  mark  of  accent.  They  fail, 
as  well,  to  record  the  transitional  sounds  between  letters 
and  words,  and  the  variations  in  letter-sounds  according 
to  variations  in  context.  But  the  expressional  variations, 
with  all  these  others,  come  to  life  again  when  the  written  or 
printed  characters  are  rendered  into  living  speech  in  read- 
ing. In  actual  reading  the  rise  and  fall  of  pitch  and  inflec- 
tion, the  hurrying  here  and  slowing  there,  what  we  have 
called  the  melody  of  speech,  appears  in  the  inner  speech 
even  more  prominently  than  does  the  articulation  of  the 
particular  sounds,  wherever  there  is  appreciation  of  the 
meaning  of  what  is  read.  The  inner  saying  of  many 
a  word,  in  rapid  reading,  is  but  a  slurred  remnant  of  its 
full  sound,  a  motor  tally  as  it  were.  But  it  is  a  tally  that 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  14! 

has  its  place  and  its  time  in  the  inner  rhythmic  sequence. 
Certain  words  may  be  omitted  entirely,  but  they  are 
usually  words  of  relative  unimportance,  or  they  are  parts 
which  would  be  unstressed  in  ordinary  speech  and  whose 
omission  will  not  affect  the  natural  swing  of  the  sentence. 
The  expression  shell  or  form  is  the  most  persistent  and 
essential  part  of  the  inner  speech,  certainly  in  my  own 
case  at  least. 

I  have  thought  it  best  to  discuss  rather  fully  the  psychic 
and  physical  characteristics  of  speech  and  the  relation 
of  speech  to  meanings,  both  because  I  find  these  processes 
of  speech,  in  their  main  lines,  essential  to  reading  as  well, 
and  because  the  pedagogy  of  phonetics  and  of  reading 
methods  generally  needs  the  perspective  which  such 
a  survey  of  the  psycho-physics  of  speech  can  give,  and 
needs  it  in  this  accessible  form.  We  shall  now,  I  hope, 
be  better  able  to  understand  the  part  played  by  inner 
speech  in  the  apperception  of  the  printed  sentence,  and 
shall  take  up  that  discussion  where  we  left  it  on  an  earlier 
page. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  FUNCTIONING  OF  INNER  SPEECH  IN  THE  PERCEPTION 
OF  WHAT  IS  READ 

IN  so  far  as  the  cues  from  the  printed  page  set  off  the 
recognition  of  phrases  and  sentences  as  wholes,  they  do 
this  the  more  readily  for  the  habits  of  sequence  and  ex- 
pectation which  exist  among  words  according  to  gram- 
matical and  logical  usages.  We  recall  Professor  James' 
account  of  how,  in  our  English,  the  verb  tends  to  follow 
its  subject  and  precede  its  object,  how  the  preposition 
tends  to  be  followed  by  its  related  substantive,  etc. 
Our  words  are  thoroughly  organized  according  to  these 
general  associative  habits  of  our  language,  and  when 
any  given  series  has  occurred  in  our  reading,  the  sort  of 
words  and  the  sentence  forms  that  belong  in  sequence 
with  these  are  subexcited  in  advance  of  their  appearance 
on  the  page,  and  need  but  slight  cues  from  the  page  to 
cause  them  to  spring  into  the  perceptual  consciousness. 
Indeed,  hundreds  of  phrases  and  sentences  have  occurred 
so  often  in  our  speech  that  they  have  a  place  in  mind  as 
specific  memory- wholes ;  and  as  slight  a  glimpse  is  needed 
to  start  the  recognition  of  these  as  when  the  tap  of  a  cane 

142 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  143 

suffices  to  announce  the  approach  of  our  grandfather. 
But  though  the  phrase  or  sentence  has  never  occurred  in 
reading  before,  in  exactly  its  present  wording,  the  inner 
readiness  for  it  is  almost  as  complete ;  and  it  will  inwardly 
complete  itself  almost  as  readily  from  a  few  visual  cues,  if 
it  is  cast  in  a  familiar  form,  if  its  words  and  parts  of  speech 
stand  in  familiar  grammatical  sequences,  so  that  each 
associatively  helps  the  other  to  rise  and  remain  in  con- 
sciousness. It  is  unitarily  perceived  quite  as  truly  as 
if  it  existed  as  a  specific  memory-whole. 

All  this  would  be  true  if  the  mechanism  of  perception 
in  reading  were  purely  visual,  without  the  help  of  the 
inner  speech.  But  the  habits  of  inter-association  and 
expectancy,  which  bind  the  units  of  our  language  into 
wholes  that  are  ready  to  realize  themselves  when  but 
a  few  of  the  constituent  or  context  parts  are  suggested, 
are  far  most  deeply  founded  in  the  audito-motor  mechan- 
ism of  speech.  People  ordinarily  talk  far  more  than  they 
read,  and  the  motor  conditions  which  obtain  in  talking  are 
much  more  conducive  to  the  formation  of  lasting  habits 
than  those  which  obtain  in  reading.  And  even  while  peo- 
ple read,  the  talking  habits  are  doubtless  getting  more 
effective  practice  in  the  inner  speech  than  are  the  visual 
habits  in  visual  perception,  for  all  but  persons  who  are 
strongly  visual-minded.  Even  in  silent  thinking,  clothed 
in  a  sort  of  language  as  the  process  always  is,  the  organ- 
ization of  our  speech  habits  goes  on  perfecting  itself,  and 


144  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

here  again  the  more  stably  knitted  if  not  indeed  the  more 
prominent  language  terms  are  motor  and  auditory. 

While,  then,  the  purely  visual  habits  of  inter-associa- 
tion and  expectancy  play  an  important  part  in  enlarging 
our  perceptive  range  and  in  unitizing  our  phrases  and 
sentences,  the  visual  range  is  itself  enlarged  and  its  con- 
tent supported  by  the  more  stably  organized  inner  utter- 
ance into  which  the  visual  percepts  are  constantly  being 
translated.  The  carrying  range  or  span  of  the  inner 
speech  is  considerably  larger  than  that  of  vision.  No 
satisfactory  measurements  have  been  made  of  the  amount 
of  new  "sense"  matter  that  can  be  held  in  control  at 
once  by  the  psycho-physical  mechanism  of  speech;  but 
at  least  a  couple  of  ordinary  lines  can  be  so  held,  and 
so  perfectly  that  the  relative  stresses  and  melody  of  the 
original  utterance  can  be  faithfully  reproduced.  Indeed 
the  rhythm  and  melody,  by  their  binding  the  sentence 
together,  become  important  factors  in  extending  the 
Sprach  Umfang,  and  the  span  is  greater  as  the  matter 
read  is  more  rhythmical  and  more  melodious  in  its  com- 
position. But  of  prime  importance,  of  course,  in  making 
possible  a  large  range  of  inner  speech  in  reading  is  the 
existence  of  the  inter-association  habits  which  we  have 
been  discussing,  and  the  range  is  larger  as  the  reading 
matter  follows  more  closely  the  associative  habits  of  the 
language.  We  remember,  of  course,  through  the  form- 
ation of  associative  links,  and  if  these  are  ready  formed 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  145 

for  us  in  what  is  read,  we  can  naturally  carry  more  of  it 
in  memory  at  a  single  reading. 

The  inner  utterance  doubtless  begins  as  the  words 
are  visually  recognized,  but  the  full  utterance  of  the 
phrases  and  sentences  as  such  follows  at  a  considerable 
distance  behind  the  eye,  a  variable  distance  that  is  greater 
as  the  reading  is  faster,  but  depends  also  on  other  factors 
than  rate.  The  reader  may  observe  this  separation  of  eye 
and  voice  as  he  turns  his  eye  to  a  new  page,  several  words 
of  the  preceding  page  usually  remaining  to  be  uttered. 
Dr.  Quantz  measured  the  amount  of  this  eye-voice 
separation  by  slipping  a  card  over  a  reader's  page,  at 
certain  places  predetermined  by  the  experimenter  but 
not  known  to  the  reader,  and  recording  the  number  of 
words  spoken  after  the  view  was  cut  off.  He  found 
that  much  depended  upon  where  in  the  line  the  view  was 
intercepted.  "When  the  reader  is  pronouncing  a  word 
at  the  beginning  of  a  line,  the  eye  is  on  an  average  7.4 
words  in  advance  of  the  voice;  in  the  middle,  5.1  words; 
and  at  the  end,  3.8,  giving  an  average  of  5.4  words." 
The  space  between  is  thus  "very  elastic,"  as  he  says, 
"expanding  and  contracting  with  each  line,  but  with  a  uni- 
form regularity  —  except  indeed  where  special  conditions 
are  introduced ;  an  unfamiliar  word,  for  instance,  would 
decrease  the  distance  to  zero,  or  a  familiar  phrase  might 
increase  it  to  a  dozen  words.  After  the  long  pause  which 
a  period  allows,  the  eye  lengthens  its  lead  of  the  voice." 


146  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

Quantz  found  a  close  correlation  between  the  increase 
of  eye-voice  separation  and  the  increase  of  rate  in  reading, 
and  states  that  the  "rapid  silent  readers  read  farthest 
ahead  of  the  voice  in  reading  aloud,"  and  thinks  that 
"a  certain  considerable  distance  between  eye  and  voice 
is  a  condition  of  intelligent  and  intelligible  reading." 
He  also  made  some  indecisive  experiments  to  determine 
whether  the  consciousness  of  meaning  goes  ahead  with 
the  eye,  and  states  it  as  probable  that  it  does  not. 

There  seems  to  be  a  phase  of  inner  utterance  which 
follows  the  eye  much  more  closely  than  this,  but  it  is 
not  the  meaningful  utterance  of  the  sentence.  It  is  true 
that  further  investigation  has  not  justified  Goldscheider 
and  Miiller's  conclusion  that  the  letter-sounds  are  im- 
mediately suggested  by  the  visual  letter-forms,  in  ordinary 
reading.  The  word-sound  seems  usually  to  be  suggested 
as  a  whole.  But  this  sound  of  the  -word  seems  to  be 
dimly  suggested  immediately  accompanying  or  following 
the  word's  visual  appearance.  This  initial  motorization, 
present  in  my  own  case  at  least,  is  of  the  words  in  isola- 
tion, is  accompanied  by  a  slight  feeling  of  the  word's 
meaning,  and  seems  to  help  hold  the  word  in  conscious- 
ness until  enough  others  are  given  to  combine  with  it  in 
touching  off  the  unitary  utterance  of  the  sentence  which 
they  form,  with  the  total  sentence  meaning  which  dom- 
inates the  inner  utterance  of  this  sentence  as  a  sentence. 
The  full  inner  utterance  seems,  then,  to  be  suggested 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  147 

partly  by  the  individual  word-sounds  serving  as  cues, 
but  the  visual  forms  doubtless  also  serve  directly  as  such 
cues.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  stability  of  the  visual 
forms  and  their  persistence  in  memory  depend  consider- 
ably on  both  the  initial  and  final  inner  utterance. 

The  full  inner  utterance  thus  "hangs  fire,"  as  Quantz 
shows,  behind  the  eye  until  there  are  present  enough 
visual  and  motor  data  to  suggest  the  total  meaning  and 
the  corresponding  sentence  expression,  and  this  utter- 
ance then  occurs  with  an  inter-dependence  of  meaning 
and  word-expression  such  as  Professors  Wundt  and  James 
have  described  for  speech  in  general.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  the  main  meaning  comes  to  conscious- 
ness only  with  the  beginning  of  the  sentence-utterance, 
and  the  reader  does  not  feel  that  he  has  the  complete 
sense  until  he  has  spoken  it.  He  is  almost  sure  to  de- 
liberately say  the  passage  over  to  himself  if  it  is  difficult, 
and  persons  who  do  not  read  very  much  must  usually 
use  an  actual  whisper,  even  in  easy  reading,  if  the  meaning 
is  to  be  obtained. 

That  the  general  meaning  dawns  upon  the  reader 
precedent  to  the  full  sentence-utterance  is  evidenced 
by  the  many  cases  in  which  variant  words  of  equivalent 
meaning  are  read,  and  also  by  the  comparative  ease  with 
which  a  reader  may  paraphrase  the  thought  of  what 
he  reads.  This  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  case  of 
a  person  reading  a  foreign  language  which  he  does  not 


148  THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING 

pronounce  easily  but  which  he  comprehends  rather 
rapidly.  Here  the  visual  word  and  phrase  percepts 
touch  off  total  meanings  which  clothe  themselves,  as  the 
meanings  become  articulate,  in  English  sentences,  and 
we  have  as  a  result  the  mongrel  reading  which  passes 
for  French  or  German  in  so  many  modern  language 
classes. 

It  is  of  the  greatest  service  to  the  reader  or  listener 
that  at  each  moment  a  considerable  amount  of  what  is  be- 
ing read  should  hang  suspended  in  the  primary  memory 
of  the  inner  speech.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  without 
something  of  this  there  could  be  no  comprehension  of 
speech  at  all.  When  a  considerable  amount  is  thus 
suspended,  the  attention  may  wander  backward  and 
forward  to  get  a  fuller  meaning  where  this  is  needed, 
with  no  fear  of  losing  the  minor  parts,  which  are  taken 
care  of  physiologically  and  may  be  taken  into  the  focus 
of  consciousness  at  will.  Any  careful  introspection 
of  actual  reading  will  show  that  the  main  focus  of  atten- 
tion is  often  far  behind  the  eye,  concerned  perhaps  with 
the  sound  of  some  word  or  phrase  that  is  giving  difficulty; 
and  we  know  that  the  entire  process  of  visually  perceiv- 
ing and  inwardly  pronouncing  may  go  on,  for  even  an 
entire  paragraph  sometimes,  with  but  very  little  of  even 
marginal  consciousness,  the  attention  being  absorbed 
in  some  thought  suggested  earlier,  or  perhaps  in  some 
irrelevant  imagery.  Indeed,  any  part  of  the  reading 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  149 

process  or  the  whole  of  it  may  proceed  automatically 
with  but  a  minimum  of  consciousness,  just  as  in  walking, 
dancing,  or  other  complex  motor  activity  requiring  adap- 
tive reactions  to  stimuli.  The  attention,  the  concern  of 
the  self  about  what  is  going  on,  may  be  here  or  there 
as  there  is  need  of  it,  and  again  is  often  centered  where 
there  is  no  need  of  it.  Some  prominent  letter  or  other 
form  in  a  preceding  or  succeeding  line  may  flash  into 
the  focus  more  prominently  than  the  advancing  stream 
of  visual  forms  that  the  eye  is  just  revealing.  The  move- 
ment of  the  attention  may  thus  be  backward  or  forward, 
but  of  course  is  usually  forward.  Doubtless  its  actual 
advance  has  little  reference  to  the  sequence  of  eye-move- 
ments and  pauses.  These  are  ordinarily  indistinguish- 
able to  consciousness,  and  the  attention  has  to  do  with 
an  unbroken  line.  The  crest  of  the  advancing  con- 
sciousness seems  often  to  be  double  or  even  quadruple, 
composed  of  visual,  motor,  or  any  other  content  with 
which  the  reader  is  concerned.  In  so  far  as  the  attention 
is  upon  the  visual  forms,  it  is  of  course  apt  to  note  pref- 
erably the  larger,  the  more  characteristic,  or  the  more 
meaningful  of  the  letters,  letter-groups,  and  word-shapes 
that  appear.  It  is  thus  apt  to  be  especially  concerned 
with  the  so-called,  determining  or  dominant  forms.  But 
I  consider  that  the  better  differentia  of  these  latter  forms 
is  their  greater  effectiveness  in  neurally  conditioning 
the  perceptual  reactions. 


150  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

There  has  been  much  controversy  as  to  whether  there 
is  a  movement  of  the  attention  during  a  reading  pause. 
Much  of  this  controversy  concerns  the  technique  of 
making  the  brief  exposures  of  reading  matter  in  the 
various  experiments,  and  would  be  difficult  to  make 
intelligible  or  profitable  to  the  general  reader,  in  any 
brief  compass.  The  behavior  of  the  attention  in  such 
experiments  must  at  any  rate  be  very  different  from  what 
occurs  in  the  pauses  of  reading.  And  as  to  the  proper 
length  of  the  exposure,  it  is  found  in  measuring  the 
amounts  that  can  be  read  during  a  reading-pause  that 
exposure-times  differing  most  widely  and  conditions  of 
lighting,  etc.,  that  are  most  variant  give  much  the  same  re- 
sults. As  to  the  question  itself  of  whether  the  dawning  of 
the  visual  forms  in  consciousness  occurs  simultaneously 
or  successively  over  the  given  areas,  careful  introspection 
of  actual  reading,  probably  the  sanest  though  still  an 
imperfect  test,  indicates  that  there  is  a  successive  coming 
to  consciousness  of  the  more  striking  forms  at  least. 
Doubtless  the  "forward  push"  of  associative  expectancy, 
on  its  visual  side  and  supported,  perhaps,  by  its  audito- 
motor  phase,  would  tend  to  pick  up  the  prospective  and 
just-appearing  forms  in  a  constant  succession.  Doubt- 
less, too,  these  same  conditions  bring  about  the  simul- 
taneous appearance  of  many  forms  that  go  to  make  up 
expected  phrases,  etc.;  but  the  general  effect  must  be  to 
bridge  the  chasm,  if  there  is  any  to  bridge,  between  the 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  151 

reading  pauses,  and  to  give  a  constantly  but  not  uni- 
formly forward  movement  of  the  visual  consciousness. 
Neurally,  as  I  have  elsewhere  urged,  it  would  seem 
that  the  cues  from  the  various  parts  of  the  reading  field 
work  simultaneously,  though  doubtless  with  very  un- 
equal effectiveness,  in  conditioning  the  perceptual  reaction. 
It  may  be,  indeed,  that  here  too  we  have  to  do  with  suc- 
cessive functionings  as  well  as  simultaneous,  but  the 
experiments  have  not  proved  that  the  stimulations  are 
effective  first  at  the  left,  or  in  succession.  The  auto- 
matic functioning  of  these  neural  factors  and  habits, 
silent  but  effective  workers  behind  the  "stage-effects" 
which  they  arouse  in  consciousness,  is  worthy  of  a  greater 
share  of  the  attention  in  the  discussion  concerning  how 
we  perceive.  Dr.  F.  Schumann  illustrated  this  last 
year  in  his  criticism  of  Erdmann  and  Dodge,  rightly 
urging  that  when  these  experimenters  read  words  at  a  dis- 
tance at  which  the  particular  letters  could  not  be  made 
out,  the  letters  might  still  be  efficient  factors,  as  his  own 
experiments  seemed  to  show,  in  neurally  conditioning 
the  appearance  of  the  total  form.  Thus  it  will  be  seen 
that  this  experiment  leaves  unsettled  the  question  as 
to  whether  total  form  or  letter-shapes  or  still  other 
factors  are  mainly  operative  in  arousing  the  perceptive 
reaction.  The  experiment  deals  with  an  effect  and 
does  not  discover  the  cause. 


CHAPTER 


THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  WHAT  IS  READ,  AND  THE  NATURE 
OF  MEANING 

WE  shall  now  proceed  to  examine  the  processes  con- 
cerned in  the  interpretation  of  what  is  read.  How  do 
we  get  the  meaning  of  our  reading,  and  in  what  does 
meaning  consist?  Our  study  of  the  relationship  of 
speech  to  meaning  has  prepared  the  way  for  an  under- 
standing of  this  vital  part  of  the  reading  process,  but  we 
have  not  yet  considered  the  part  that  is  played  by  imagery. 

A  series  of  experiments  made  by  the  writer  gave 
data  which  throw  some  light  upon  this  problem.  The 
experiments  were  arranged  as  follows:  Two  printed 
articles  of  considerable  interest  and  but  moderate  diffi- 
culty were  selected,  one  an  account  of  how  a  spider  spins 
its  web,  the  other  a  description  of  the  arrangements  made 
for  the  entertainment  of  Queen  Elizabeth  at  Killing- 
worth  Castle.  The  words  of  both  articles  were  first 
pasted  singly  each  on  a  square  of  cardboard,  were  shuf- 
fled, and  were  then  exposed  to  readers  for  four  seconds 
each,  the  reader  looking  at  the  word  exposed  and  allowing 
associations  to  play  about  it  as  they  would,  reporting 
what  had  occurred  as  soon  as  the  four  seconds  had  passed. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  153 

Again,  the  lines  of  both  articles  were  pasted  consecu- 
tively end  to  end,  on  narrow  slips  of  cardboard,  and 
the  successive  words  and  phrases  were  exposed  to 
readers,  an  additional  word  or  phrase  being  presented 
at  each  exposure  of  four  seconds,  the  preceding  context 
being  always  in  view  as  it  is  in  ordinary  reading.  The 
reader  again  reported  his  associations,  etc.,  as  for  the 
isolated  words.  The  two  series  of  experiments  were 
separated  in  time  sufficiently  to  prevent  the  memories 
of  one  from  interfering  seriously  with  those  of  the  other. 
With  the  isolated  words  there  was  first,  usually,  an 
indefinable  recognition  of  the  visual  form  of  the  word 
as  familiar.  Accompanying  or  very  closely  following 
this,  probably  the  latter  though  the  readers  could  not 
be  explicit,  the  word  was  usually  "  mentally  pronounced." 
After  this  there  was  apt  to  come  a  mental  pronunciation 
of  some  phrase  or  other  word  that  had  been  associatively 
connected,  as  when  by  gave  Sweet  by-and-by,  vertical 
gave  vertical  writing,  etc.  Often  there  would  be  but 
a  dim  suggestion  of  some  familiar  line  of  poetry,  leaving 
the  reader  with  a  vague  and  tantalizing  feeling  of  some- 
thing which  he  could  not  get.  Quite  often,  especially 
with  one  of  the  readers,  the  characteristic  feeling  that 
belonged  to  such  a  suggested  word  or  phrase  was  all  that 
came,  but  this  was  vividly  aroused.  The  words  exposed 
tended  to  call  up  word-groups  with  which  they  had  been 
rhythmically  connected.  Often  the  word  that  was  exposed 


154  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

was  pronounced  "interesting,"  "agreeable,"  "full  of 
meaning,"  etc.,  and  occasionally  these  judgments  seemed 
to  refer  to  the  sound  or  visual  appearance  of  the  word  it- 
self. More  usually  the  feeling  seemed  traceable  to  some 
particular  associations  or  uses  of  the  word  in  past  experi- 
ence, though  these  latter  would  not  appear  above  the 
threshold. 

As  to  imagery,  there  was  almost  none  suggested  by 
the  connective  and  relational  words,  the  definite  ad- 
jectives, etc.,  "the  little  words,"  as  my  readers  called 
them.  Because  of  this  absence  of  imagery  the  exposure 
of  these  words  was  regarded  with  much  displeasure, 
their  isolated  appearance  seeming  to  be  regarded  as 
anomalous.  They  seldom  aroused  any  ideas  directly, 
and  suggested  few  associations  of  any  kind  except  verbal 
ones,  usually  phrases  of  which  they  constantly  form 
a  part.  Occasionally  they  gave  evidence  of  setting  the 
readers'  thoughts  in  some  characteristic  direction  of 
expectancy,  and  doubtless  the  prepositions,  especially, 
always  had  some  very  general  influence  in  determining 
how  the  whole  psycho-physical  organism  should  face 
a  coming  related  object. 

The  amount  of  imagery  suggested  by  the  other  classes 
of  words  that  were  presented  in  isolation  was  several 
times  as  great  with  some  readers  as  with  others.  In 
general  the  auditory  and  motor  elements  exceeded  the 
visual  even  for  these  words,  the  two  former  being  mainly 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  155 

verbal.  Both  the  verbal  associates  and  the  other  images 
suggested  by  the  isolated  words  were  of  the  most  varied 
character,  the  word  often  being  taken  in  several  quite 
different  senses  in  the  course  of  the  four  seconds.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  dawdling  association,  the  words  not 
taking  much  hold  upon  the  mind.  The  readers  were 
often  surprised  at  the  very  different  appearance  and  sound 
of  the  isolated  word,  suggesting  how  little  the  words 
had  previously  been  thought  of  for  themselves  apart 
from  the  sentences  in  which  they  figure. 

In  the  other  series  in  which  the  words  and  phrases 
were  exposed  consecutively  in  context,  the  readers  took 
a  more  active  attitude,  the  associations  were  less  varied 
but  more  numerous,  and  there  were  other  very  character- 
istic differences.  A  reader  who  had  looked  blankly  at 
the  word  A  when  exposed  singly,  and  had  gotten  no 
associations,  had  a  rich  content  of  associations  when 
A  appeared  as  the  first  word  of  a  new  paragraph.  Be- 
sides, his  feelings  of  expectancy,  curiosity,  strain,  the 
"forward  push"  that  was  marked  in  all  readers  of 
the  context  exposures,  were  even  more  prominent  than 
the  definite  associations.  The  mere  statement  that  the 
word  to  be  exposed  is  part  of  a  sense  passage  limits  the 
trend  of  association  at  the  start.  The  limitation  extends 
farther  when  the  reader  has  caught  the  general  topic 
discussed  in  the  passage,  and  still  farther  when  the  ex- 
posed word  is  presented  upon  a  verbal  ancj  ideational 


156  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

background  formed  by  the  complete  preceding  context. 
In  the  spider  story,  for  example,  after  the  mention  of 
web-weaving^  the  word  top  no  longer  suggested  top  of 
hill,  flag-staff,  spinning-tops,  etc.,  as  when  it  was  exposed 
in  isolation,  but  now  suggested  the  top  of  a  post  or  gate- 
way, with  the  spider-situation  in  mind. 

The  newly  exposed  word  was  usually  mentally  pro- 
nounced as  before,  and  was  "fitted  into  the  preceding," 
as  one  reader  very  often  put  it,  the  new  word  seeming 
to  contribute  toward  a  notion  of  sentence  unity  to  which 
each  additional  element  added  a  needed  part.  Im- 
mediately following  this  there  was  usually  a  filling  out 
of  the  sentence  or  phrase  so  as  to  make  sense  with  what 
came  before,  and  when  this  did  not  actually  occur,  there 
was  usually  the  "forward  push,"  "forward  tendency," 
"tendency  to  fill  out,"  as  it  has  been  variously  described 
by  the  readers.  All  emphasized  the  strength  and  com- 
parative constancy  of  this  feeling,  and  mentioned  it  as 
perhaps  the  most  striking  thing  observed  in  the  experi- 
ments. It  was  usually  not  so  strong  at  the  beginning 
or  end  of  sentences  and  paragraphs. 

Beside  this  "forward"  feeling,  the  "little  words"  gave 
few  except  verbal  associations.  They  seemed,  as  one 
reader  several  times  remarked,  to  be  but  "verbal  count- 
ers" in  the  sentence.  This  reader  showed  comparatively 
little  tendency  to  visualize,  throughout  trie  experiments. 
However,  he  did  visualize  some  of  the  main  objects  and 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  157 

scenes  referred  to  in  the  passages  read,  enough  to  form 
a  vague  background  for  the  story,  but  in  the  main  the 
story  itself  seemed  to  be  thought  in  verbal  terms. 

The  other  readers,  however,  had  more  of  the  visual 
element.  In  the  story  of  the  spider's  weaving,  for  in- 
stance, a  visual  picture  of  the  spider  was  early  formed 
and  remained  throughout,  although  it  was  more  or  less 
modified  to  suit  the  different  references  to  it  as  the  story 
progressed.  The  spider  itself  was  seen  in  a  visual  back- 
ground that  had  various  components  fused  in  a  kaleido- 
scopic fashion  into  it,  each  time  that  the  story  gave  addi- 
tional data,  but  still  without  any  violent  transitions  being 
made.  While  this  fluctuating  spider-scene  would  some- 
times pass  temporarily  out  of  the  attention  field  as  some 
particular  substantive  called  up  scenes  peculiar  to  itself, 
it  constantly  returned  and  remained  as  a  factor  control- 
ling the  course  of  association  and  expectation. 

The  visualization  was  almost  always  static.  The  spider 
jumping  was  visualized  as  the  spider  ready  to  jump  or 
just  alighted.  The  thought  of  motion,  when  mentioned 
at  all,  seemed  to  be  a  consciousness  of  tendency  to  move- 
ment in  the  reader's  organism. 

The  agreement  or  disagreement  of  the  exposed  word 
with  the  trend  of  expectation  produced  by  the  preceding 
context  was  a  matter  of  frequent  remark  by  the  readers, 
and  was  often  a  cause  of  considerable  feeling  on  their 
part.  The  sequence  was  felt  as  right  or  wrong,  giving 


158  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

fulfillment  or  disappointment  of  expectation.  If  partic- 
ular words  were  expected,  the  ones  that  came,  although 
different  from  the  expected  ones,  were  often  called  "all 
right,"  "still  better,"  etc.,  showing  that  the  real  expecta- 
tion was  rather  of  the  expression  of  a  desired  meaning 
than  of  any  particular  words. 

The  meanings  of  particular  words  were  commented 
on  from  time  to  time,  as  when  vertical  gave  an  "up  and 
down  feeling,"  distant  gave  "a  kind  of  feeling  of  what 
it  meant,"  etc.  Starting  gave  a  dim  thought  of  starting 
machinery,  although  of  no  particular  machinery.  Dis- 
tant, for  another  reader,  produced  "a  raising  of  eyes 
and  looking  off."  Swings  gave  a  "motion  from  left  to 
right,"  with  perhaps  a  slight  head-movement.  Many 
words  gave  a  sense  of  location.  Tribal  gave  a  "sort 
of  western  location,"  and  dress,  patronage,  alien,  among 
others,  were  located  in  particular  directions.  Through- 
out much  of  the  exposure-reading  of  the  Queen 
Elizabeth  story,  one  reader  maintained  an  orientation  of 
the  events  as  occurring  to  the  left  and  front  of  him. 

On  the  whole,  the  meanings  seemed  usually  to  be  felt 
as  belonging  to  the  larger  wholes,  to  the  sentences  and 
other  large  units.  The  words  were  mainly  "counters," 
felt  as  having  a  part  in  the  total,  but  their  function  being 
mainly  to  help  tide  one  over  to  a  place  where  a  new 
meaning  would  be  suggested  or  completed.  The  reader 
seldom  escaped  feeling  the  particular  words  in  a  per- 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  159 

spective  of  the  before  and  after,  and  was  often  much  puz- 
zled, even  baffled,  to  know  how  to  deal  with  them  as  they 
stood  with  the  total  sense  uncompleted.  The  absence 
of  images,  at  least  with  the  individual  words,  was  rather 
marked. 

These  are  my  more  important  observations  from 
a  considerable  amount  of  such  experimentation.  They 
agree  in  the  main  with  the  conclusions  of  Professor  Ribot 
from  an  extended  and  somewhat  similar  series  of  experi- 
ments in  which  words  (general  terms)  were  pronounced 
to  listeners.  The  listener  was  to  state  immediately  whether 
the  word  called  up  anything  or  nothing  to  the  mind, 
and  if  anything,  to  state  what  it  was.  Out  of  a  large 
number  of  replies,  the  most  frequent  was  "nothing," 
the  only  sensory  image  present  in  consciousness  being 
the  sound  of  the  word.  In  other  cases,  some  concrete 
example  of  the  term  was  imaged,  sometimes  with  a  visual 
image  of  the  printed  or  written  word.  Sometimes  the 
printed  or  written  word  would  appear  without  other  im- 
age. These  were  results  for  isolated  words.  Ribot  also 
presented  whole  sentences,  "abstract  statements,"  and 
these  gave  a  similar  scantiness  of  imagery.  In  the  latter 
test  he  considered  only  the  sentence  as  a  whole  and  did 
not  look  also  for  imagery  from  particular  component 
words,  as  in  my  own  experiments.1 

1  Ribot's  experiments  are  reviewed  in  Stout's  "  Analytical  Psychology," 
Vol.  I,  p.  82. 


l6o  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

Professor  Stout,  in  the  chapter  on  "Implicit  Appre- 
hension" in  his  "Analytical  Psychology,"  points  out  that 
many  of  the  early  English  and  Scotch  philosophical 
writers,  as  Hobbes,  Berkeley,  Hume,  Stewart,  and  Dr. 
Campbell,  "bore  unequivocal  testimony  to  the  fact  that 
the  flow  of  words  is  for  the  most  part  unattended  by 
a  parallel  flow  of  mental  imagery."  Burke  had  held 
that  "in  the  ordinary  course  of  conversation  we  are 
sufficiently  understood  without  raising  any  images  of 
the  things  concerning  which  we  speak."  Professor 
Stout  himself  holds  that  the  presence  of  sensorial  imagery 
is  neither  usual  nor  essential  iri  the  apprehension  of 
spoken  or  written  language.  He  does  not  think  that 
even  fleeting  and  shadowy  images  necessarily  accompany 
the  use  of  words  in  ordinary  discourse,  or  are  even  usually 
present.  Even  when  the  image  does  appear,  according  to 
Professor  Stout,  it  is  often  unessential  and  almost  irrele- 
vant, as  when  I  have  the  image  of  two  persons  talking 
when  I  hear  the  word  understanding.  The  real  meaning  is 
not  in  this  image,  nor  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  wealth 
in  the  image  of  a  bale  of  goods  that  may  be  called  up 
at  the  word's  appearance.  "In  reality,  imagery  of  this 
sort  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  word  itself  considered  as 
a  sign  rather  than  of  the  meaning  which  it  signifies." 

At  any  rate,  Professor  Stout  is  certain  that  the  part 
that  images  play  in  consciousness  has  been  overestimated. 
Consciousness  is  not  a  picture-gallery,  or  a  magic  lantern 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  l6l 

exhibition  with  slide  displacing  slide  in  rapid  succession. 
We  may  suppose  presentational  states  of  consciousness  not 
composed  of  sense  imagery,  but  functioning  analogously, 
just  as  revived  images  "have  a  representative  value  in 
some  degree  comparable  to  that  of  sense-perceptions, 
in  spite  of  very  great  differences  in  respect  of  distinct- 
ness, vividness,  and  quality."  Even  in  actual  sense- 
perception,  the  meaning  of  the  object  is  something  quite 
other  than  the  deliverance  of  the  senses.  According 
to  Stout,  "an  imageless  representation  of  the  whole  is 
conjoined  with  the  sensible  appearance  as  its  psychic 
fringe."  In  this  fringe  lies  the  significance  of  the  object, 
as  of  the  image  or  the  word. 

Apparently,  Stout  holds  that  a  feeling  of  the  possibility 
of  reviving  the  experiences  that  one  has  had  or  may  have 
with  the  object  forms  the  basis  of  this  fringe,  of  this  halo 
of  meaning.  He  says  that  if  we  dwell  on  a  word,  we 
have  a  presentiment  that  images  are  coming,  followed 
by  them  shortly.  "  It  is  as  if  the  multiplicity  were  some- 
how wrapped  up  in  the  distinctionless  unity  and  were 
struggling  to  unfold  itself."  So  he  suggests  the  name 
implicit  apprehension  for  "that  apprehension  of  a  whole 
which  takes  place  without  the  discernment  of  its  parts." 
Nearly  all  words  stand  for  concept-wholes  which  are 
representative  of  many  particulars.  Even  singular  names 
are  somewhat  so,  standing  for  a  whole  that  represents 
varying  phases  in  the  history  of  the  individual.  Stout'i 


1 62  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

main  point  in  the  whole  discussion  is  that  it  is  possible 
and  usual  to  think  such  a  representative  whole  "in  its 
unity  and  distinctness  without  discerning  all  or  even  any 
of  its  component  details."  However,  when  a  detail,  say 
a  sense  image,  does  form  a  part  of  our  thought  of  a  word 
that  is  read  or  heard,  it  may,  although  irrelevant  or  un- 
essential, help  the  word  to  hold  the  attention  on  the  real 
meaning,  which,  however,  is  not  the  image.  The  image, 
Stout  thinks,  is  a  helpful  instrument  for  fixing  the  atten- 
tion, as  the  sense-percept  itself  is.  The  name,  however, 
is  often  superior  to  the  image,  in  that  it  calls  up  the 
generic  core  of  the  concept,  while  an  image  is  apt  to  be 
particular  and  thus  comparatively  unessential. 

In  general,  language,  aside  from  its  function  as  a  means 
of  communication,  is  most  important  as  a  means  of 
directing  the  attention.  It  is  a  mobile  "movement  of 
fixation."  "A  word,"  says  Stout,1  "is  an  instrument 
for  thinking  about  the  meaning  which  it  expresses." 
There  is  more  facile  and  accurate  control  over  these 
articulatory  "movements  of  fixation"  than  over  the 
various  muscular  adjustments  of  the  sense  organs;  hence 
their  advantage  in  the  manipulation  of  meanings  in  our 
thinking.  Stout  finds  that  one  "has  almost  as  great  a 
control  over  the  internal  articulation  as  over  the  external. 
The  chief  restriction  appears  to  lie  in  the  inability  to 
make  the  represented  sound  as  loud  as  the  actual  sensa- 

1  "Analytical  Psychology,"  Vol.  II,  p.  194. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  163 

tion,  but,  apart  from  this,  one  may  do  almost  as  one  likes 
with  it."  So  we  have  come  to  think  mainly  in  words,  as 
the  most  rapid  and  accurate  means  of  handling  our  mean- 
ings, of  using  our  experiences.  With  children  and  unedu- 
cated persons,  as  we  have  seen,  actual  articulation  is  very 
common  as  they  think  or  read.  Older  and  educated 
persons  resort  to  the  inner  articulation.  The  thinking 
may  indeed  be  done  in  part  with  images  as  signs  of  mean- 
ings, but  is  far  more  usually  and  advantageously  done 
with  words  as  the  instruments. 

So  much  for  the  part  played  by  imagery  in  reading, 
a  part  that  is  far  larger  in  the  reading  of  young  children 
than  in  that  of  adults  and  that  is  far  larger  in  some  than 
in  others,  but  a  part  that  is  always  secondary  or  auxiliary 
to  the  suggestion  and  control  of  meanings  themselves. 
The  consciousness  of  meaning  itself  belongs  in  the 
main  to  that  group  of  mental  states,  the  feelings,  which 
I  regard  with  Wundt  as  unanalyzables,  or  at  least  as 
having  a  large  unanalyzable  core  or  body.  Each  mean- 
ing-feeling is  very  much  itself  and  unlike  every  other. 
Of  the  meanings  felt  with  particular  words  as  we  read, 
most  are,  as  James  suggests,  those  of  relations  felt  as 
existing  between  the  larger  objects  of  thought,  feelings 
of  and,  if,  but,  by,  etc.  These  feelings,  fleeting  and 
slight  as  they  often  are,  and  named  only  by  the  words 
which  call  them  forth,  are  yet  perhaps  as  definite  and 
as  much  themselves  as  anger,  pity,  and  the  like.  The 


164  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   READING 

poverty  of  names  substantively  used  for  the  subjective 
states  makes  us  unduly  oblivious  of  the  real  distinctions 
existing  among  these  most  meaningful  of  all  conscious- 
ness conditions.  Indeed  the  relational  states  themselves 
have  usually  escaped  notice,  as  when  M.  Egger  states 
that  the  word-sounds  in  speech  make  ten  or  twenty 
times  more  noise  in  consciousness  than  the  other  com- 
ponents of  the  consciousness.  Careful  observation,  how- 
ever, reveals  the  fact  that  words  are  seldom  or  never 
heard  as  mere  sounds ;  what  seems  to  be  their  sound  is 
really  mainly  the  meaning  which  we  read  into  them,  as 
indeed  is  the  case  when  we  hear  a  tolling  bell,  a  tramp 
of  horses,  or  a  familiar  hymn.  When  we  are  occasionally 
able  to  attend  mainly  to  the  raw  sounds  of  a  word  di- 
vorced from  word-associates  and  from  meaning,  the 
word  -sounds  as  strange  and  unlike  itself  as  the  isolated 
words  appeared  in  my  exposure  experiments,  or  as  any 
letter  or  figure  appears  when  unduly  stared  at. 

The  fact  is  that  meaning  is  part  and  parcel  of  word- 
sound  and  of  word -utterance,  as  these  ordinarily  occur  in 
reading  and  in  thinking ;  that  is,  what  we  take  for  word- 
sound  and  word -utterance  is  largely  word -meaning. 
And  as  meaning  inheres  in  or  is  fused  with  the  word's 
sound  or  utterance,  so  to  get  the  meaning  we  naturally 
utter  the  word,  incipiently  for  the  most  part,  actually  when 
the  meaning  is  obscure.  And  not  merely  for  the  "little 
words,"  the  words  showing  relationship,  etc.,  do  the  mean- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  165 

ings  lie  in  the  passing  feelings  which  they  rouse.  These 
relational  words  lead  to  the  substantive  resting-places  of 
the  sentence,  where  some  sensory  imagery  is  apt  to  occur, 
and  should  occur  usually,  to  harmonize  with  the  imagery 
awakened  at  the  earlier  substantive  parts.  But  as  Stout 
rightly  argues,  the  meaning  even  here  is  not  mainly  in  the 
image,  but  is  in  the  feeling  which  attaches  to  the  image 
and  the  word  together  as  the  feeling's  sign.  Often,  as 
has  been  noted  in  the  account  of  my  experiments,  we  get 
this  meaning-feeling  without  the  word  or  image,  often  it 
is  all  we  possibly  can  get,  in  those  tantalizing  cases  of 
remembering  only  what  a  name  is  like,  how  it  feels  to  say 
it,  what  its  deeper  significance  is.  Here  we  approach  the 
pure  meaning-consciousness  as  detached  from  articulation. 
So  for  reading  as  for  thinking,  we  would  agree  with  James 
when  he  says  that  "The  definite  images  of  traditional 
psychology  form  but  the  smallest  part  of  our  minds,  as 
they  actually  live;"  and  with  Flournoy,1  who  warns 
against  supposing  that  the  words  and  ideas  suggested  by 
a  given  word  express  the  thought  really  contained  in  it. 
This  he  believes  lies  deeper.  "The  true  psychological 
centre  of  the  concept  seems  then  to  be  not  in  the  images 
called  up,  but  in  those  confused  feelings  which  serve  them 
for  a  background,  and  which  James  has  so  well  described 
under  the  names  of  fringe,  suffusion,  psychic  overtones, 
etc."  Feelings,  and  the  motor  reactions  or  tendencies 

1  V Annie  Psychologiqtte,  1895,  pp.  45-53- 


1 66  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

from  which  feelings  cannot  be  disjoined,  are  far  more 
fundamental  and  usual  than  images,  and  these  constitute 
the  consciousness  of  meaning. 

There  is  an  underlying  feeling  of  meaning-in-itself,  as 
it  were,  in  reading  any  sentence  that  makes  grammatical 
sense,  and  this  quite  independently  of  anything  that  the 
sentence  tells.  As  James  puts  it,  "  Certain  kinds  of  verbal 
associate,  certain  grammatical  expectations  fulfilled,  stand 
for  a  good  part  of  our  impression  that  a  sentence  has  a 
meaning.  .  .  .  Nonsense  in  grammatical  form  sounds 
half  rational;  sense  with  grammatical  sequence  upset 
sounds  nonsensical."  Often  in  our  reading  we  are  content, 
for  considerable  stretches,  with  this  sense-meaning  feeling, 
like  children  who  listen  with  rapt  attention  to  half-under- 
stood things,  asking  the  meaning  of  none.  "Their  think- 
ing is  in  form  just  what  ours  is  when  it  is  rapid.  Both 
of  us  make  flying  leaps  over  large  portions  of  the  sentences 
uttered,  and  we  give  attention  only  to  substantive  starting- 
points,  turning-points,  and  conclusions  here  and  there."  l 

Of  specific  meanings  beyond  this  general  feeling  of 
"making  sense,"  everything  in  my  own  experiments 
indicates  that  they  are  usually  total  meanings  belonging 
to  sentences  or  to  unitary  parts  of  sentences,  but  felt  dif- 
ferently as  this  or  that  particular  word  is  being  dealt  with ; 
or  we  can  say  that  the  particular  word's  meaning  is  felt  in 
a  perspective  of  the  total  meaning.  A  relation  can  hardly 
1  James'  "  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  255-265. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING-  167 

be  felt  apart  from  the  terms  or  objects  related,  a  particular 
manner  or  intensity  of  action  or  being  can  hardly  be  sug- 
gested by  an  adverb  apart  from  the  thought  of  the  action 
or  being  itself.  And  likewise  a  substantive  that  is  thought 
of  naturally  has,  in  this  thought,  something  of  the  sub- 
stantive's relationships.  In  short,  it  is  total  situations 
and  performances  that  we  think  of  and  read  of,  and  these 
often  complex,  always  with  various  aspects  and  various 
relationships  of  parts.  No  single  word  names  or  describes 
the  whole.  When  a  single  word  is  presented,  therefore, 
it  suggests  but  a  part  or  an  aspect  of  this  total  meaning 
and  is  felt  as  inadequate  and  artificial  unless  given  in  its 
sentence  context.  With  meanings,  as  with  vocal  utterance, 
the  sentence-meaning  is  the  natural  unit,  and  smaller 
divisions  considered  apart  from  this  are  felt  as  disjecta 
membra. 

We  may  safely  conclude,  then,  that  meanings  in  reading 
are  mainly  feeling-reactions  and  motor  attitudes  attaching 
most  intimately  to  or  fused  with  the  inner  utterance  of  the\ 
words  and  especially  of  the  sentences  that  are  read.  And 
with  the  utterance  in  which  the  meanings  mainly  inhere, 
we  must  include  the  movements  of  emphasis,  of  inflection, 
of  gesture,  and  of  expression  generally.  We  have  referred 
to  the  peculiarly  important  part  that  these  latter  play  in 
the  expression  of  meaning.  The  feeling  of  these  bodily 
postures,  attitudes,  gestures,  etc.,  may  well  furnish  the 
very  body  of  much  that  we  call  meaning,  according  to  the 


1 68  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

principle  which  Professor  James  holds  to  be  true  for  feelings 
generally.  At  any  rate,  they  have  a  most  intimate  relation- 
ship with  meanings,  and  deserve  more  careful  observa- 
tional study  than  has  yet  been  given  them  by  students 
who  would  know  the  intimate  structure  of  language. 

But  we  must  also  remember  that  meanings  in  reading 
are  not  reached  solely  through  the  inner  utterance.  The 
sentence-utterance,  as  we  have  seen,  comes  at  some  dis- 
tance behind  the  eye.  But  we  have  seen  that  with  the  first 
incipient  thought  of  the  word's  isolated  utterance  there 
is  present  a  suggestion  of  its  meaning.  Indeed,  so  strong 
is  this  with  some  words  that  they  are  said  to  "look  like 
their  meaning."  It  is  so  hi  my  own  case  with  the  words 
venomous,  God,  with  many  proper  names,  and  with 
very  many  other  words.  There  is  doubtless  with  most 
words  some  feeling  characteristic  of  their  visual  form  as 
such.  And  more  or  less  of  the  word's  significance  is  apt 
to  be  felt  with  this  or  immediately  after.  Indeed  there 
seems  to  be  a  flash  of  the  relation  of  this  meaning  to  the 
preceding  context-meaning,  and  to  this  extent  some  sense 
of  total  meaning  seems  to  keep  pace  with  the  eye.  This 
is  indicated  in  the  action  of  any  reader  as  he  finishes  a 
page  or  a  paragraph  that  he  is  reading  aloud.  He  seems 
to  feel  that  his  work  -is  done  as  his  eye  sees  the  last  word, 
although  the  utterance  is  half  a  line  or  more  behind.  The 
total  meaning,  although  not  fully  realized  as  yet,  has  begun 
to  realize  itself,  and  the  reader  is  satisfied  as  having  its 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  169 

realization  initiated  and  under  control.  The  visual  forms 
may  often  act  as  cues  to  touch  off  this  total  meaning 
immediately,  this  total  meaning  then  guiding  the  suc- 
ceeding utterance  of  the  sentence,  which  is  partly  an 
expression  of  the  total  meaning  thus  previously  sug- 
gested and  felt,  and  is  partly  also  a  means  of  bringing  this 
meaning  to  full  consciousness  in  its  various  aspects. 


CHAPTER   DC     \/ 

THE  RATE  OF  READING 

IT  remains  finally  for  us  to  consider  an  aspect  of  the 
psychology  of  reading  which  is -of  the  greatest  importance 
practically  and  pedagogically,  the  rate  of  reading  and 
the  factors  which  condition  speed. 

Romanes  early  experimented  upon  the  matter,  having 
"practiced  readers"  read  paragraphs  in  a  book  containing 
"simple  statements  of  simple  facts,"  and  noting  the  time 
needed  for  the  reading.  The  moment  the  reading  ceased, 
the  reader  wrote  down  all  that  could  be  remembered  of 
what  was  read.  Romanes  found  "astonishing  differences 
in  the  rate  of  reading."  "The  differences  may  amount 
to  4  to  i ;  or  otherwise  stated,  in  a  given  time  one  indi- 
vidual may  be  able  to  read  four  times  as  fast  as  another. 
Moreover,  it  appeared  that  there  was  no  relationship 
between  slowness  of  reading  and  power  of  assimilation." 
On  the  contrary,  "when  all  the  efforts  are  directed  to  as- 
similating as  much  as  possible  in  a  given  time,  the  rapid 
readers  (as  shown  by  their  written  notes)  usually  give  a 
better  account  of  the  portion  of  the  paragraph  which  has 
been  compassed  by  the  slow  readers  than  the  latter  are  able 
to  give ;  and  the  most  rapid  reader  whom  I  have  found  is 
also  the  best  at  assimilating." 

170 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  1 7! 

"I  shall  further  say  that  there  is  no  relationship  between 
rapidity  of  perception  as  thus  tested  and  intellectual 
activity  as  tested  by  the  general  results  of  intellectual 
work ;  for  I  have  tried  the  experiment  with  several  highly 
distinguished  men  in  science  and  literature,  most  of  whom 
I  found  to  be  slow  readers."  * 

Miss  Adelaide  M.  Abell,  in  the  Educational  Review  for 
October,  1894,  reported  experiments  on  the  reading  rate  of 
forty  Wellesley  College  girls,  the  work  being  done  under 
the  direction  of  Professor  Calkins.  The  girls  read  a  short 
story  at  a  definite  time  not  long  before  the  class  was  to 
meet,  and  timed  the  reading,  not  knowing  the  aim  of  the 
experiment.  When  the  class  met,  the  readers  wrote  the 
story  from  memory,  as  nearly  verbatim  as  possible. 

The  slowest  reader  was  found  to  have  used  in  her  reading 
six  times  as  much  time  as  the  fastest.  The  reproduction 
test  followed  but  a  few  hours  after  the  reading,  and  was 
therefore  taken  as  a  test  of  comprehension  rather  than  of 
memory.  The  results  indicate  that  most  of  the  readers 
"gain  by  relative  slowness,"  but  "two  subjects  head  the 
list  both  in  rapidity  and  comprehension,"  and  these 
readers  agree  that  except  where  matter  is  obscure  "they 
grasp  the  thought  more  readily  by  rapid  reading."  "Of 
all  three  classes  of  readers  —  fast,  moderate,  and  slow  — • 
some  comprehend  well  and  others  fairly  or  poorly," 
showing  that  "comprehension  may  be  independent  of  the 
1  Romanes'  "  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,"  pp.  136-137. 


172  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

absolute  rate  of  reading."  Miss  Abell  found,  however, 
that  on  the  whole  the  swift  reading  saves  time  without 
necessarily  decreasing  comprehension.  She  believes  that 
the  rate  will  be  increased  by  "increasing  the  rapidity  of 
association,  by  repeating  and  multiplying  associations,  and 
by  intensifying  interest  and  attention."  The  actual  or 
imagined  pronunciation  of  the  words  read  was  found  to  be 
"a  characteristic  correlate"  of  the  slow  reading,  and  Miss 
Abell  thinks  tbis  a  hindrance  when  habitual,  and  a  tendency 
that  should  be  discouraged  in  children.  "Another  pecu- 
liarity," she  adds,  "of  the  slow  readers  among  our  sub- 
jects, is  the  reading  of  a  word  at  a  time,  while  the  rapid 
readers  grasp  phrases,  clauses,  sometimes  even  sentences, 
at  a  glance."  She  concludes  that  although  every  individ- 
ual probably  has  his  maximum  rate,  "determined  by  his 
natural  quickness  of  comprehension  and  association,  it  is 
yet  possible  and  desirable  to  some  extent  to  increase  the 
ordinary  rate." 

Dr.  J.  O.  Quantz  tested  fifty  university  students,  juniors 
and  seniors  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  to  determine 
their  normal  and  maximal  rates  in  reading,  and  experi- 
mented upon  them  further  to  determine  the  factors  and 
conditions  upon  which  rate  of  reading  depended.  He 
found  that  his  readers  varied  from  3.5  words  per  second 
for  the  slowest  to  8.8  words  per  second  for  the  fastest, 
when  reading  at  normal  speed.  At  maximal  speed  the  rate 
ranged  from  3.5  words  per  second  to  12.2  words.  This 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  173 

was  for  silent  reading.  In  reading  aloud  at  normal  speed 
the  rates  were  within  a  range  of  2.6  to  3.9  words  per 
second.  Generally,  those  who  read  fast  at  normal  speed 
excelled  in  the  maximal  tests,  and  the  slow  readers  were 
generally  slow  in  both. 

In  testing  the  ability  to  reproduce  what  was  read,  he 
found  that  the  rapid  readers  were  on  an  average  about  37 
per  cent  superior  to  the  slow  readers  in  the  quality  of  their 
work.  "The  superiority  of  the  rapid  reader  is  also  shown 
by  the  fact  that  his  memory  of  the  substance  of  his  reading 
is  more  exact  than  that  of  the  slow  reader.  He  introduces 
only  two-thirds  as  many  thoughts  not  found  in  the  original 
selections." 

The  use  of  lip-movement  in  reading  was  not  found  to 
help  in  comprehension  or  in  concentration  of  the  attention, 
although  it  often  occurred  as  a  result  of  concentrating  the 
attention.  In  general,  lip-movement  was  found  to  be  a 
serious  hindrance  to  speed  of  reading,  and  consequently 
to  intelligence  of  reading.  "The  ten  slowest  readers  show 
almost  double  the  amount  of  lip-movement  that  the  ten 
most  rapid  do,"  while  "not  one  of  those  whose  reading  is 
widest  is  a  lip-mover  to  any  extent  which  can  be  observed." 
"Extent  of  reading  works  directly  against  movement  of 
lips,  and  is  practically  the  only  thing  which  does  so,  except 
among  the  medium  lip-movers." 

Dr.  Quantz  found  that  persons  who  are  of  the  visual  type 
''are  slightly  more  rapid  readers  than  the  auditory  type." 


174  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

Quickness  of  visual  perception,  shown  in  rapid  recognition 
of  colors,  words,  geometrical  forms  such  as  circles,  squares, 
diamonds,  etc.,  was  found  to  be  "an  important  factor  in 
deciding  one's  rate  of  reading."  Considering  all  the 
factors  which  he  found  to  contribute  to  rapid  reading, 
they  are,  "in  order  of  importance,  visual  perception, 
practice  in  reading  from  childhood  on,  power  of  concen- 
tration, mental  alertness  estimated  by  rapidity  of  original 
composition,  scholarly  ability  as  decided  by  college  rec- 
ords." These  results  were  found  in  general  for  the  read- 
ers tested,  and  as  a  particular  confirmation  the  person 
whose  reading  was  by  far  the  most  rapid  of  all  those  tested 
excelled  markedly  in  practically  all  of  the  above  conditions 
of  rapid  reading.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  judg- 
ments of  readers  about  themselves,  as  to  whether  they 
are  slow,  medium,  or  fast  readers,  agreed  very  well  with 
the  results  of  Dr.  Quantz'  tests  of  speed  as  taken  later. 

I  have  carefully  tested  the  reading  rate  of  twenty-eight 
persons,  and  have  tabulated  the  results  for  twenty  of  these 
who  were  graduate  university  students  and  whose  reading, 
accordingly,  had  been  pretty  extensive.  The  reading  was 
from  an  interesting  novel,  presenting  no  special  difficulty, 
and  the  tests  were  made  under  conditions  which  approxi- 
mated as  nearly  as  possible  those  of  comfortable  reading 
in  one's  own  quiet  room.  The  readers  were  found  to 
range  in  rate  from  an  average  of  2.5  words  per  second  for 
the  slowest  reader  to  an  average  of  9.8  words  for  the 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  175 

fastest,  when  reading  silently  at  their  ordinary  rate. 
When  the  silent  reading  was  at  maximal  speed,  the  rates 
ranged  from  3.5  to  13.5  words  per  second.  In  reading 
aloud,  the  average  of  the  slowest  reader  was  2.2  words 
per  second  and  that  of  the  fastest  4.7,  at  the  ordinary  rate, 
and  at  maximal  speed  the  corresponding  range  was  from 
2.9  to  6.4  words  per  second.  The  average  rate  of  the 
twenty  students  when  reading  silently  was  5.63  words  per 
second  at  their  ordinary  speed  and  8.21  at  their  maximal, 
while  in  reading  aloud  they  averaged  3.55  words  per 
second  at  their  ordinary  speed  and  4.58  at  their  max- 
imal. Several  of  the  readers  averaged  near  the  fastest 
rates  given  above,  and  the  other  readers  were  distributed 
somewhat  evenly,  as  to  rate,  from  the  fastest  rate  to  one 
somewhat  above  the  slowest. 

Lip-movement  was  usual  with  only  two  or  three  of  these 
twenty  readers,  but  one  of  the  fastest  readers  tested  was 
a  lip-mover.  However,  when  those  who  were  unaccus- 
tomed to  lip-movement  were  asked  to  move  their  lips 
while  reading,  their  speed  was  evidently  hindered.  The 
readers  showed  a  strong  rhythmic  tendency.  Each  would 
fall  into  a  reading  pace  that  seemed  most  natural  to  him, 
and  would  then  read  page  after  page  in  almost  exactly 
the  same  time.  Quite  usually  the  differences  from  page  to 
page  would  not  be  over  three  or  four  seconds.  Some  of 
the  readers  showed  surprising  regularity,  reading  several 
successive  pages  in  almost  exactly  the  same  time,  although 


176  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

they  were  quite  unable  to  estimate  the  same  time  interval, 
failing  by  as  much  as  twenty  seconds  in  the  attempt  to 
estimate  the  time  of  reading  the  page.  Habits  of  eye- 
movement  are  doubtless  important  factors  in  setting  this 
pace.  When  the  same  number  of  Words  was  printed  in 
fewer  lines,  of  the  same  length  and  the  same  size  of  type, 
they  were  read  faster  in  just  the  proportion  that  the  lines 
were  fewer,  suggesting  that  the  eye  has  a  habit  of  tak- 
ing about  so  much  time  for  a  line  of  a  given  length. 
I  found  by  experimenting  upon  lines  marked  here  and 
there  by  crosses,  etc.,  for  fixation  points,  as  below, 


it  rained  ;«4«t  Sir  Isaac  New  HJR*  Aupposed  he 
ha4featen  when  he  s£t  tlie  chicken  bjbes  on  h$  plate;  nrt 
thatOdisou  forgot  hnmredding  day.  Stgpthe  fact  remaimfhat 
«operi$3of  life  is  fi«^  from.  n«ftceable  £|stractio*4-  The  Qr 
with  tajrit  in  .hand  foQets  to  go  tCWinner  afte»*e  has  run^Jhe 
bell  ps^e  you  tig  wo©u  goes  to  diffe0it  parts  of  the4|«ise,  she 
,  knows  ulQwhy;  middle,  a^*  hunts  for  the  thi^Ie  on  its  fin- 
ger, or  the  p«fP*u  its  .mouth;  while  o]|Q!age  is  troubled  ^Rt  it 
cann^find  the  glasses  c£Jts  nose. 

FIG.  15 

that  the  eye  readily  falls  into  a  very  uniform  rate  of  prog- 
ress, corresponding  more  or  less  closely  to  its  usual  rate 
of  reading,  in  traversing  the  lines  without  reading. 

Dr.  Dearborn,  as  we  have  seen,  finds  that  the  eye  falls 
into  a  brief  motor  habit  of  making  a  certain  fixed  number 
of  pauses  per  line,  or,  sometimes,  a  certain  succession  of 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING  177 

pauses  for  a  given  passage,  independently  of  variations  in 
the  subject-matter  from  line  to  line.  The  fast  readers 
formed  these  "short-lived  motor  habits"  much  oftener 
than  the  slow  readers,  and  the  moderately  short  lines  of 
uniform  length  give  the  best  conditions  for  forming  these 
habits,  which  seem  to  increase  the  speed  of  reading.  We 
have  already  noted  the  emphasis  placed  by  Dearborn  upon 
the  establishment  of  " a  regular  rhythmical  movement?  as 
a  factor  in  increasing  the  reading  rate. 

Dearborn  tested  the  reading  rate  of  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  readers,  and  found  that  for  a  given  class  of  reading 
matter  the  fastest  reader  read  more  than  three  times  as 
fast  as  the  slowest.  He  also  carefully  tested  the  reading 
rates  of  three  graduate  students,  one  a  mathematician, 
one  a  teacher  in  a  secondary  school,  and  one  a  psy- 
chologist, for  various  classes  of  reading  matter  selected 
from  literature  and  science.  Each  of  these  persons  had 
quite  different  rates  for  the  different  classes  of  matter 
read.  However,  the  fastest  reader  in  his  most  interesting 
subject,  in  this  case  the  mathematician,  read  much  the 
fastest  in  all  the  classes  of  matter,  the  secondary  teacher 
read  much  more  slowly  than  the  mathematician  in  all 
the  classes,  and  the  psychologist  read  much  more  slowly 
still  in  all  but  one  class.  Dearborn  draws  from  this  data 
the  conclusion  "that  one  who  reads  rapidly  in  a  given 
style  and  class  of  subject-matter  will  read  somewhat  pro- 
portionally faster  than  a  slow  reader,  whatever,  within 


178  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

certain  recognized  limits,  the  nature  of  the  style  and 
subject-matter." 

After  the  reading  of  a  passage  in  the  reader's  usual  way, 
Dearborn  had  him  read  it  again  "as  rapidly  as  possible 
consistent  with  getting  the  sense."  The  reader  believed 
that  he  usually  read  at  his  maximum  rate,  and  that  this 
was  particularly  true  of  his  first  reading  of  this  passage, 
the  matter  being  especially  interesting.  It  was  found, 
however,  that  in  the  second  reading  nearly  one-third  of  the 
total  time  was  saved,  the  absolute  time  of  nearly  every 
pause  being  diminished,  fewer  pauses  being  made,  and 
"the  average  distance  of  the  eye's  first  pause  from  the  left 
edge  of  the  page  noticeably  increased."  The  length  of 
the  initial  fixations  in  the  lines  was,  however,  even  a  lit- 
tle longer  than  before,  permitting  the  preliminary  general 
survey  of  the  line  which  Dearborn  finds  to  be  needful  for 
the  more  rapid  reading.  He  finds,  indeed,  that  "  rapidity 
of  reading  is  not  necessarily  correlated  with  regularity  of 
movement,"  some  of  the  fastest  and  slowest  readers  being 
found  equally  regular  in  movement.  But  "a  wider  'span- 
ning' of  attention,"  shown  in  the  frequency  of  long  pauses 
at  the  line's  beginning  and  in  the  fewer  fixations  per  line, 
is  found  to  be  characteristic  of  the  more  rapid  readers. 
"The  slow  readers  have  a  narrower  span  or  working  ex- 
tent of  attention,  and  a  greater  total  arc  of  movement." 

Both  my  own  experiments  and  those  of  Dr.  Dearborn 
indicate  that  there  can  usually  be  much  improvement 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  READING  179 

in  the  rate  of  reading.  There  seems  to  be  a  rhythm  into 
which  each  reader  ordinarily  falls  in  ordinary  reading, 
and  it  seems  doubtful  whether  ordinary  practice  changes 
this  rhythm  after  it  is  well  established.  Doubtless  many 
of  us  dawdle  along  in  our  reading  at  a  plodding  pace  which 
was  set  and  hardened  in  days  of  listless  poring  over  unin- 
teresting tasks,  or  in  imitation  of  the  slow  reading  aloud 
which  was  so  usually  going  on  either  with  ourselves  or  with 
others  in  the  school.  And  indeed,  for  the  later  school 
period,  I  quite  share  Dr.  Dearborn's  opinion  "that  the 
careful  dwelling  upon  each  word  and  phrase,  which  is  the 
daily  method  of  the  classical  student  throughout  many 
years  of  study,  helps  not  a  little  in  fixing  such  a  habit  of 
slow  assimilation."  Bad  form  in  reading  is  doubtless  as 
distressingly  common  as  bad  form  in  swimming,  skating, 
or  tennis.  And  we  know  that  the  form  once  set  is  apt  to  re- 
main for  life  in  any  of  these  activities,  with  all  the  corre- 
lated limitations  in  speed  and  in  quality  of  performance. 
I  have  considerably  increased  my  own  speed  in  reading  by 
waking  up  to  the  fact  that  my  rate  was  unnecessarily  slow, 
and  then  persistently  reading  as  fast  as  possible  with  well- 
concentrated  attention,  taking  care  to  stop  short  of  fatigue 
until  the  new  pace  was  somewhat  established.  I  thus 
reached  a  speed  of  a  page  per  minute  for  such  books  as 
Ellis'  "The  Criminal,"  of  the  Contemporary  Science  Se- 
ries, maintaining  this  rate  for  a  half-hour  or  so  at  a  time, 
and  with  very  good  comprehension  of  what  was  read, 


l8o  THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   READING 

although  after  such  reading  a  very  hasty  review  of  the 
leading  points  was  the  most  satisfactory  procedure.  My 
earlier  speed  was  not  more  than  half  as  great. 

It  is  especially  desirable  that  the  reading  rate  and  the 
conditions  affecting  it  should  be  carefully  determined  for 
the  children  of  the  various  school  grades,  and  for  various 
classes  of  reading  matter,  taking  into  account  the  apper- 
ceptive  relation  of  the  reader  to  what  is  read.  That  fast 
reading  may  come  quite  early  is  indicated  by  a  test  which  I 
made  of  an  eleven-year-old  schoolgirl  who  was  said  to  be 
"a  great  reader,"  and  whose  rate  was  found  to  surpass  that 
of  almost  all  the  university  men  both  at  normal  and  at 
maximal  speed.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  perfectly 
certain  that  there  is,  among  children,  a  great  deal  of  dead- 
level  plodding,  with  little  thought  of  varying  the  speed  ac- 
cording to  the  importance  of  what  is  read ;  and  investigation 
here,  if  carefully  made  and  then  acted  upon  pedagogically, 
may  have  the  greatest  value  in  lessening  waste  and  hi 
increasing  effectiveness  both  in  reading  and  thinking. 

A  university  friend,  a  mathematician,  informs  me  that 
he  has  read  the  whole  of  a  standard  novel  of  320  pages  in 
two  and  one-fourth  hours.  The  occasional  though  very 
rare  instances  of  such  rapid  reading  suggest  that  we  may 
be  far  within  our  possibilities  in  dealing  with  printed 
symbols.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  at  any  such  speed 
the  meanings  suggested  immediately  by  the  visual  forms 
suffice  for  all  but  the  more  important  parts,  and  that  these 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  l8l 

meanings  are  felt  sufficiently,  without  inner  utterance,  to 
permit  selection  of  what  is  more  important,  the  more  im- 
portant places  themselves  having  a  fleeting  inner  utterance 
to  vivify  their  meaning.  We  must  indeed  experiment 
further  before  we  can  conclude  against  the  possibility  of 
mainly  visual  reading  at  the  very  high  speeds.  The  inner 
speech  in  such  cases  must  at  any  rate  suffer  a  foreshorten- 
ing and  atrophy  of  articulatory  details  which  reduce  it 
to  little  more  than  a  slight  motor  tallying  as  the  meanings 
are  felt  or  dwelt  upon. 

In  general,  the  question  of  individual  differences  in 
reading  is  a  very  important  one,  and  merits  careful  study 
upon  still  other  phases  than  rate.  For  instance,  the 
natural  characteristics  of  children's  reading,  at  various 
stages,  must  be  worked  out  carefully,  and  the  normal 
range  of  variations  must  be  determined.  Differences  in 
the  extent  of  the  perceptual  span,  in  the  size  and  nature 
of  the  units  in  terms  of  which  reading  matter  is  per- 
ceived; differences  in  the  amount  of  attention  given  to 
total  form,  to  letters,  etc.;  "legato"  versus  "staccato" 
reading,  a  very  important  and  typical  difference  that  is 
wisely  taken  account  of  by  Principal  Russell  in  his  teach- 
ing of  reading  at  the  Worcester  State  Normal  School ;  dif- 
ferences in  phrasing,  also  made  much  of  by  Principal 
Russell,  and  important  psychologically  as  well  as  peda- 
gogically;  I  should  consider  all  of  these  promising  sub- 
jects for  investigation,  were  I  to  continue  the  general 


1 82  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

study.  Abnormalities  of  reading,  typical  or  otherwise, 
are  numerous  and  offer  another  rich  field  of  study.  Many 
of  these  abnormalities,  to  be  found  almost  everywhere,  are 
probably  remediable  or  preventable  in  the  light  of  careful 
analysis  of  normal  reading,  and  the  study  of  the  cases  may 
render  much  service  to  psychology  as  well  as  to  education. 
The  clinical  method,  following  closely  the  fortunes  of  par- 
ticular and  significant  cases,  seems  to  have  great  advan- 
tages here,  as  indeed  it  seems  to  me  to  have  for  very  many 
of  the  problems  of  general  psychology. 

Indeed,  for  all  functions  that  are  performed  in  reading, 
the  determination  of  types,  and  of  the  normal  as  well  as 
abnormal  ranges  of  variation,  becomes  one  of  the  im- 
portant duties  of  a  differential  psychology  which  would 
render  real  service  to  education,  and  the  returns  to  psy- 
chology itself  will  be  well  worth  while.  Messmer's  sug- 
gestion of  subjective  and  objective  types  of  readers  names 
only  the  first  of  important  type-differences.  For  example, 
in  what  typical  ways  may  we  be  conscious  of  meaning? 
Professor  Titchener,  in  a  letter  of  nearly  three  years  ago 
from  which  he  kindly  permits  me  to  quote,  holds  that 
while  "the  'meaning'  of  a  concept  is,"  as  indeed  appeared 
in  Dr.  Bagley's  thesis  study  with  Professor  Titchener, 
"always  carried  by  the  'fringe'  of  consciousness,"  the 
constituents  of  this  fringe  have  typical  and  important 
variations.  These  go  back  for  their  source  to  the  division 
of  men  "into  two  great  classes,  according  as  they  have 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING  183 

or  do  not  have  a  large  amount  of  organic  sensation  in 
their  general  conscious  make-up."  For  example,  people 
for  whom  the  organic  sensations  have  practically  disap- 
peared "remember  old  events  without  any  stir-up  of  feel- 
ing." "  These  are  minds  of  cultivated  and  bookish  people, 
like  those  that  Galton  found  to  be  lacking  in  visual  im- 
agery." "These  people  are  cold-blooded,  as  one  says; 
they  are  intellectual  and  not  emotional;  they  have  no 
affective  memory,  but  only  an  untoned  reproductive 
memory;  they  are  detached,  impersonal,  cool,  reflective. 
That  minds  of  this  type  exist  I  cannot  have  any  doubt, 
although  I  myself  belong  to  the  former  group.  To  say 
that  these  people  do  their  conceptual  thinking  by  means 
of  felt  organic  attitudes  simply  goes  against  their  own 
introspections.  They  find,  in  the  extreme  cases,  that  the 
fringe  is  verbal,  just  precisely  as  the  center  of  conscious- 
ness is.  They  do  not  feel  any  attitude.  It  may  possibly 
be  (I  say  this  hesitatingly)  that  their  apprehension  of 
meaning  is  purely  physiological,  —  done  by  a  not-felt 
attitude;  at  least,  we  have  found  cases  of  recognition  in 
which  neither  felt  attitude  nor  verbal  fringe  could  be  dis- 
covered by  introspection,  so  that  for  all  we  could  tell  the 
act  of  recognition  was  a  purely  physiological,  reflex  matter: 
the  organism  fell  into  the  recognitive  attitude  without  any 
introspectively  discoverable  change  in  consciousness.  This 
is  uncertain  ground;  but  of  the  existence  of  the  verbal- 
fringe  type  I  can,  as  I  said,  have  no  doubt.  Doubtless, 


184  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  READING 

it  is  a  development  from  the  other;  and  doubtless  there 
are  all  stages  between  the  extremes." 

I  am  glad  that  Professor  Titchener  has  so  ably  stated 
these  typical  differences  in  this  phase  of  the  reading  con- 
sciousness. Variations  of  great  importance  will  be  found 
in  various  other  phases ;  but  in  view  of  the  fact  that  there 
has  been  so  little  observational  study  of  cases,  any  attempt 
to  treat  further  the  subject  of  individual  differences  in 
reading  would  scarcely  be  profitable  at  this  time.  Enough 
has  been  said  to  suggest  the  importance  of  such  study. 
The  conclusions  stated  in  the  present  volume  seem  to 
hold  for  the  great  majority  of  readers ;  and  the  important 
contributions  yet  to  be  made  by  the  study  of  individual 
differences  are  likely  to  be  in  the  nature  of  additions 
rather  than  of  contradictions. 

We  must  rest  here  our  survey  of  the  psychology  of  read- 
ing, and  attend  to  other  aspects  of  the  general  topic. 
There  yet  remain  to  be  written  many  most  interesting 
chapters  on  the  psycho-physiological  phases  of  reading, 
which  will  be  made  possible  as  investigation  proceeds 
further.  The  work  that  has  already  been  done  by  many 
hands  and  in  many  lands  illustrates  well  how  the  federated 
science  of  the  world  is  making  solid  progress  with  specific 
problems,  and  bears  promise  of  a  day  when  education 
shall  rest  on  foundations  better  grounded  than  were  the 
individual  and  unverified  opinions  about  "Reading,"  for 
instance,  even  twenty-five  years  ago. 


PART  II 

THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  AND  OF  READING 
METHODS 


CHAPTER   X 


WHEREVER  there  has  been  civilization  there  has  been 
reading  and  writing,  in  the  remote  past  as  in  the  present. 
In  North  Babylonia,  for  example,  written  records  have 
been  discovered  that  are  no  less  than  six  thousand  years 
old,  and  these  prove  that  writing  and  civilization  were 
then  by  no  means  in  their  infancy.  Clodd,  in  his  "  Story 
of  the  Alphabet,"  concludes  that  in  Babylon  writing  had 
long  passed  the  pictograph  stage  eight  thousand  years  ago, 
and  thinks  that  "Babylon  carries  the  palm"  in  the  age  of 
writing.  At  least  seven  thousand  years  ago  Egypt  was 
reading  a  page  that  was  at  least  partially  alphabetic,  show- 
ing that  reading  was  even  then  an  art  that  had  been  prac- 
ticed for  ages.  In  Crete,  inscriptions  are  being  unearthed 
that  go  back  to  the  early  part  of  the  third  millennium  before 
the  Christian  Era.  In  all  these  cases,  and  especially  in 
Egypt  and  Babylonia,  there  are  abundant  indications  that 
reading  and  writing  were  already  most  ancient  practices, 
with  the  story  of  their  origin  enshrouded,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  mystery,  and  told  only  in  myth  and  legend. 

But  the  written  records  that  have  been  preserved  from 
these  remote  ages  give  sure  signs  of  the  true  origin  of  the 

187 


1 88  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

systems  of  writing  used  by  these  nations.  They  prove 
that  in  these  early  times  reading  and  writing  had  much 
the  same  course  of  development  that  has  been  observed 
among  later  peoples  and  that  is  going  on  to-day  among 
savage  races  so  far  as  ,they  are  still  uninterfered  with. 
Various  peoples  and  tribes  on  every  continent  have  devel- 
oped systems  of  writing,  independently.  Some  of  these 
systems  have  reached  a  high  state  of  completeness,  some 
have  been  arrested  at  one  or  another  stage,  some  are  still 
hi  their  rude  beginnings.  Yet  so  far  as  each  has  gone 
it  resembles  almost  every  other  in  the  general  lines  of  its 
development.  One  finds  most  striking  resemblances,  even 
in  details,  in  comparing  such  widely  separated  systems 
as  the  Maya  of  Yucatan  with  the  Egyptian,  or  the  Ojibwa 
of  North  America  with  the  Babylonian. 

Keeping  in  mind,  then,  this  comparative  agreement 
in  the  development  of  the  different  systems,  I  shall  illus- 
trate various  phases  of  the  evolution  of  reading  and  writing 
by  citations  from  various  systems,  as  each  may  best  serve 
my  purpose,  emphasizing,  perhaps,  the  Egyptian  as  being 
typical  and  best  known. 

Mankind  began  his  reading  with  picture-books  and  his 
writing  with  picture-making,  just  as  the  child  likes  to  begin. 
This  seems  to  have  been  the  case  literally,  when  we  recall 
that  book  probably  once  meant  a  piece  of  bark  and  that  li- 
brary (liber,  bark)  and  letters  (lino,  to  smear  or  paint)  bring 
down  with  them  the  smell  of  the  woods.  The  first  pictures, 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  189 

however,  were  drawn  in  the  air  and  were  read  as  fast  as 
drawn.  They  constituted  a  gesture-language.  The  spoken 
language  and  the  gesture-language  arose  together  as  they  do 
in  the  child,  the  words  and  the  gestures  being  a  joint  means 
by  which  prehistoric  man  communicated  with  his  fellows. 
So  inseparable  were  these  means  of  communicating,  for 
some  tribes,  that  they  found  it  difficult  or  impossible  to  com- 
municate in  the  dark  when  the  gestures  could  not  be  read. 

Primitive  man  became  very  expert  in  the  use  of  gestures, 
and  savages  of  to-day  use  them  most  effectively.  Tylor, 
in  his  "Early  History  of  Mankind  "  (p.  82),  says  that  the 
natives  of  North  America  were  as  proficient  in  the  use  of 
the  gesture-language  as  in  that  of  picture-writing,  much 
the  same  conditions  having  given  rise  to  both.  Professor 
Wundt  believes  that  the  languages  of  picture  and  of  ges- 
ture grew  up  together,  naturally  influencing  each  other. 

Even  among  certain  modern  civilized  peoples,  notably 
among  the  Neapolitans,  the  gesture-language  still  plays 
an  important  part  in  everyday  communication.  Indeed, 
Prof essorRibot  quotes  with  some  approval  Dugald  Stewart's 
assertion  that  "If  men  had  been  deprived  of  the  organs  of 
voice  or  the  sense  of  hearing,  there  is  no  doubt  that  they 
would  have  invented  an  alphabet  of  visible  signs  wherewith 
to  express  all  their  ideas  and  sentiments."  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  notable  tendency  of  children  to  live  over  again 
the  use  that  the  race  has  made  of  gestures  may  soon  be 
made  the  subject  of  careful  observational  study. 


IQO  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

The  gesture-language  is,  in  considerable  part  at  least,  a 
picture-language,  a  sort  of  drawing  in  the  air.  W.  von 
Humboldt  called  it  "a  species  of  writing."  Speaking 
of  such  a  comparison,  Tylor  goes  on  to  say  (p.  82) : 
"There  is  indeed  a  very  close  relation  between  these  two 
ways  of  expressing  and  communicating  thought.  Gesture 
can  set  forth  thought  with  far  greater  speed  and  fulness 
than  picture-writing,  but  it  is  inferior  to  it  in  having  to 
place  the  different  elements  of  a  sentence  in  succession,  in 
single  file,  so  to  speak;  while  by  a  picture  the  whole  of 
an  event  may  be  set  in  view  at  one  glance,  and  that 
permanently,  so  as  to  serve  as  a  message  to  a  distant  place 
or  a  record  to  a  future  time.  But  the  imitation  of  visible 
qualities  as  a  means  of  expressing  ideas  is  common  to 
both  methods,  and  both  belong  to  similar  conditions  of 
the  human  mind." 

From  drawing  in  the  air  to  drawing  in  the  sand,  or  on 
bark  or  stone  or  wood,  would  seem  to  be  an  easy  transi- 
tion. In  Central  Brazil  the  natives  were  found  to  fashion 
an  explanatory  design  in  the  sand  when  their  gestures 
proved  insufficient  for  conveying  an  idea.  Him,  in  his 
"Origins of  Art"  (p.  156),  says  of  this  that  "these  designs 
are  only  a  projection  on  a  different  surface  of  the  hand- 
movements  with  which  in  their  pantomimic  language 
they  describe  the  outlines  of  the  objects  in  the  air.  One 
is  tempted,  therefore,  to  find  in  these  transferred  gestures 
the  origin  of  pictorial  art."  He  adds  that  "in  some  tribes 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  IQI 

—  particularly  among  the  North  American  Indians  —  the 
picture-signs  have  evidently  been  derived  from  the  cor- 
responding gesture-signs."  However,  Professor  Him  and 
other  authorities  are  uncertain  whether  the  step  was  taken 
in  this  or  in  some  other  way.  We  cannot  be  sure  whether 
the  first  pictures  were  made  for  purposes  of  communication 
or  for  the  fun  of  the  making,  as  when  the  child  first 
scribbles. 

Certain  it  is  that  from  very  early  times  primitive  man 
made  pictures  in  the  greatest  abundance,  and  that  by  their 
means  he  communicated  with  his  fellows.  He  attained  to 
this  means  of  communication  independently  in  the  most 
diverse  parts  of  the  earth,  though  the  pictures,  like  the 
gestures,  are  remarkably  alike  throughout  the  world. 
Of  this  Tylor  says  (p.  88):  "As  the  gesture-language  is 
substantially  the  same  among  savage  tribes  all  over  the 
world,  and  also  among  children  who  cannot  speak,  so  the 
picture-writings  of  savages  are  not  only  similar  to  one 
another  but  are  like  what  children  make. untaught  even  in 
civilized  countries.  Like  the  universal  language  of  ges- 
tures, the  art  of  picture-writing  tends  to  prove  that  the 
mind  of  the  uncultured  man  works  in  much  the  same  way 
at  all  times  and  everywhere." 

That  the  picture-writing  is  almost  inconceivably  ancient 
is  shown  by  the  many  drawings  that  have  been  found  of 
animals  now  extinct.  Clodd,  in  the  "Story  of  the  Alpha- 
bet" (p.  22),  writes  of  this:  "Oi>  fragments  of  bone,  horn, 


1 92  THE   HISTORY   OF  READING 

schist,  and  other  materials,  the  savage  hunter  of  the 
Reindeer  Period,  using  a  pointed  flint-flake,  depicted 
alike  himself  and  the  wild  animals  which  he  hunted. 
From  cavern-floors  of  France,  Belgium,  and  other  parts 
of  Western  Europe,  whose  deposits  date  from  the  Old 
Stone  Age,  there  have  been  unearthed  rude  etchings  of 
naked  hardy  men  brandishing  spears  at  wild  horses,  or 
creeping  along  the  ground  to  hurl  their  weapons  at  the 
urus,  or  wild  ox,  or  at  the  woolly-haired  elephant.  A 
portrait  of  this  last-named,  showing  the  creature's  shaggy 
ears,  long  hair,  and  upwardly  curved  tusks,  its  feet  being 
hidden  in  the  surrounding  high  grass,  is  one  of  the  most 
famous  examples  of  paleolithic  art." 

In  these  rude  pictures  of  tens  of  thousands  of  years  ago 
lay  the  germs  of  the  alphabets  which  have  made  civiliza- 
tions possible,  and  which  have  indeed  slowly  developed 
pari  passu  with  these  civilizations.  We  shall  now  sketch 
the  typical  features  of  this  development. 

In  the  first  stages 
of  pictography  the 
FIG.  1 6.  —  Record  of  starving  hunter.  drawings  are  made 

(From  Clodd.')  up()n  &]mo&t    every 

i,  a  canoe.     2,  man  with  hands  outstretched, 

indicating  "  nothing."  3,  the  uplifted  right  hand  Conceivable  mate- 
means  "  food,"  or  "  to  eat,"  and  the  left  points  to 

4,  the  hut.  rial,    and    for   the 

1  This  and  the  other  cuts  and  quotations  from  Clodd  are  reproduced, 
by  permission,  from  Clodd's  "  The  Story  of  the  Alphabet,"  copyright 
1900,  by  D.  Appleton  and  Co. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 


most  varied  purposes.  Some- 
times a  hunter,  out  of  food, 
would  scratch  upon  a  stick  the 
picture-story  of  his  destitution, 
and  stick  it  in  the  ground  on 
the  trail  nearest  his  dwelling. 
Sometimes  upon 


FIG.  1 8. — Hidatsa 
pictograph  on  a 
buffalo  shoul- 
der blade. 

"  The  trail  of 
the  animals  and 
pursuers  ;s  shown 
in  the  dotted  lines. 
Of  the  three  heads 
the  lowest  is  that 
of  the  seeker,  who 
is  depicted  shout- 
ing after  his  miss- 
ing friends;  then 
he  is  shown  ad- 
vancing and  still 
shouting,  till  his 
call  is  returned 
from  the  spot 
where  the  hunters 
have  camped." 
—  Clodd,  p.  58. 


some  conspicuous 
rock  his  pictures 
indicated  the 
game  that  was  to 
be  found  in  that 
locality.  On 
grave-stones,  the 

.    .  ,11         e    FIG.   17.  —  Tomb-board  of  In- 

pictures    told     of  dian  Chief< 

the  prOWeSS  Of  "His  totem,  the  reindeer,  is 
,  ,  reversed,  and  his  own  name, 

nunter    and   war-  which  means  the  white  Fisher, 

•  f\  is    not    recorded.     The    seven 

e    strokes  note  the  seven  war  par- 
great    bowlder    he    ties  whom  he  led;  the  three  up- 
right   strokes   as  many  wounds 

WOuld   express   his    received  in  battle.    The  horned 
head  tells  of  a  desperate  fight 

thought    of     his    with  a  moose."  —  Clodd's"  Story 
of  the  Alphabet,"  p.  49. 

God,  as,  perhaps, 

on  the  "Indian  God  Rock"  still  to  be 
seen  on  the  bank  of  the  Allegheny  River 
south  of  Franklin,  Pennsylvania.  •  Again, 
the  pictures  scratched  on  the  shoulder 
blade  of  a  buffalo  killed  in  the  hunt  tell 


IQ4  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

of  the  efforts  to  track  companions  who  had  gone  on  in 
the  chase. 

And  so  on  bark  and  wood  and  stone,  on  skulls  and  skins 
and  bones  and  teeth,  on  surfaces  formed  of  various  fibers, 
and,  with  some  tribes,  on  the  human  body  in  tattooing,  the 
pictures  were  made  according  to  the  exigency  of  the  case 
or  the  whim  of  the  artist.  The  investigators  of  children 
to-day  find  here,  too,  a  most  interesting  parallel  in  the 
pictures  and  symbols  carved  and  scratched  and  chalked 
everywhere  in  and  about  the  schoolhouses  of  our  earlier 
days. 

The  pictures  of  primitive  man  were  at  first  sketches  por- 
traying directly  objects  to  be  found  in  the  environment, 
and  were  rough  sketches  such  as  a  child  makes.  Such  lines 
and  parts  were  drawn  as  stood  for  the  object  in  the  artist's 
thought,  and  imitative  fidelity  to  the  objective  thing  was 
not  very  essential.  Of  course  this  sketchiness  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  actual  perception  of  objects,  for  savage  and 
child  alike,  as  indeed  for  all  of  us.  A  very  few  lines,  angles, 
and  other  significant  features  make  up  the  bulk  of  what 
we  really  note  in  casting  a  glance  at  any  object.  And 
perceptions,  too,  are  full  of  things  not  really  to  be  seen 
in  the  object,  but  standing  for  it  in  our  thought.  So  the 
Indian  drew  the  sound  issuing  from  the  mouth  of  the  lost 
hunter.  So  the  child  makes  the  legs  show  through  the 
clothing,  etc. 

There  is  found    in   the   primitive   drawings   a   happy 


THE   HISTORY  OF  READING  195 

"hitting  off"  of  the  core  of  the  thing,  of  the  general  and 
essential,  such  as  occurs  in  the  race  myths,  in  the  child's 
imitations,  etc.  We  shall  later  show  how  the  pictures 
became  conventionalized,  gradually,  in  their  continued  use. 
But  first  let  us  note  that  they  did  not  long  remain  simply 
representations  of  objects  of  sense,  or 
pictographs  proper.  They  came  to  rep-  *  J  ^  " 
resent  ideas  and  feelings  of  most  varied  FlG- 19-— Combat. 

(From  Hoffman.1) 

kinds,  became  ideographs,  as  this  class  of 
pictures  has  been  called.  Thus,  by  metonymy,  combat 
was  pictured  as  in  Figure  19.  Figure  20  shows  a  drawing 
placed  for  warning  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  and  rocky  trail, 
intimating  that  a  goat  may  be  able  to  climb  the  cliff, 
though  at  an  angle  of  45°,  but  that  a  horse  would  fall. 

By  substitution  of  a  part  for 
the  whole,    various   animals 
are  represented  by  a  drawing 
..  s~  of  the  head,  especially  when 

V^"""X  horned.     The  wild  turkey  is 

^^^^  represented  by  its  three-toed 

FIG.  20.— Warning.   New  Mexico,    imprint;    the   bear,    by   the 
(From  Hoffman.)  outline    of    its    paw,    large 

claws  indicating  a  grizzly  bear,  while  the  absence  of  claws, 
or  small  ones,  denoted  the  black  bear.     By  metaphor,  the 

1  This  and  the  other  cuts  and  quotations  from  Hoffman  are  repro- 
duced, by  permission,  from  Hoffman's  "  Beginnings  of  Writing,"  copy- 
right, 1896,  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 


196  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

Egyptians  represented  the  idea  of  mother  by  a  vulture, 
this  bird  being  supposed  to  nourish  its  young  with  its  own 
blood.  A  king  was  pictured  by  a  bee,  the  latter  having 
a  monarchical  government.  Hoffman  says,  in  his  "Be- 
ginnings of  Writing"  (p.  50),  that  "ideographs  repre- 
senting abstract  ideas,  pictorially  expressed, 
are  more  frequent  in  the  pictography  of 
some  tribes  than  the  mere  portraiture  of 
objects  pure  and  simple." 
stored  in  a  pit.  Figure  2i  shows  the  Dakota  sign  for 

(FromHoffman.)  the    drde    signifying    the    pit    in 


which  buffalo  meat  was  stored,  as  indicated  by  the  out- 
line of  a  buffalo  head  within,  with  a  forked  stick  extend- 
ing upward  as  used  to  support  the  drying  pole. 

Hunger  was   sometimes  indicated   by  a  man  with  a 
heavy  bar  across  breast  or  abdomen,  as  the  seat  of  suf- 
fering;   or  with  prominent  ribs,  as  from 
emaciation.     Often  the  gesture-signs  were 
drawn,  representing  the  corresponding  idea. 
The  cross,  representing  trade  or  exchange 
(see  Fig.  35),  seems  to  have  been  an  imi- 
tation  of   the  gesture  for  the  same,   and      Hoffman-) 
so  with  drawings  of  the  gesture-signs  for  eating,   food, 
hunger,  etc.,  among  both  Indians  and  Egyptians. 

The  drawings  tended  to  become  mere  conventionalized 
symbols  or  symbolic  signs  of  the  object  or  idea  signi- 
fied. Thus,  for  the  Indians,  %  red  tomahawk  meant 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 


197 


FIG.  23.  —  Snow. 
(From  Hoffman.) 


war;  a  pipe,  or  hand  clasped,  meant  peace.  The  Ojibwa 
Indians  represented  spring  by  trees  with  faint  signs  of 
buds,  and  winter  as  in  Figure  23,  the 
curved  line  representing  the  sky,  with  snow 
descending  in  zigzags,  the  whole  meaning 
the  "season  of  snow."  Sometimes  au- 
tumn seems  to  have  been  represented  by 
leaves  flitting  over  the  ground.  A  month  was  sometimes 
a  crescent.  A  day  was  a  sun,  or  a  sleep,  represented 
in  the  latter  case  by  a  man  in  a  reclining 
position.  Figure  24  shows  the  Ojibwa 

FIG.  24.  — Mora-       .  . 

ing.  (From  sign  for  morning,  the  curved  line  indi- 
cating the  course  of  the  sun,  the  short 
line  signifying  morning  when  at  the  left,  midday  when 
at  the  middle,  evening  when  at  the  right.  These  latter 
signs  seem  to  have  been  in  imi- 
tation of  the  corresponding  ges- 
tures. Another  of  the  signs  for 
morning  was  a  radiant  sun  ap- 
pearing above  the  horizon  line. 
Figure  25  is  a  Mexican  repre- 
sentation of  traveling,  the  course 
in  this  case  having  led  across  a 

FIG.  25.  —  Traveling  on  foot 

stream,  as  indicated  by  the  pad-       and  by  water  (Mexican). 

(From  Hoffman.) 

dies  used  in  crossing  it. 

Sound  and  speech  were  represented  in  various  ways. 
Figure  26  shows  the  Ojibwa  character  for  singing,  the  lines 


198  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

representing  vocal  utterance  being  repeated  about  the 
heart  to  denote  joyous  emotion.  The  Da- 
kotas  sometimes  represent  whooping-cough 
by  a  number  of  lines  issuing  from  the  mouth 
as  above,  but  the  lines  were  longer  and 
ing  (Ojibwa)g~  more  divergent.  Conversation  was  indi- 

(FromHoffman.)    ^^     by    another    trjbe    ^    ^    pigure    ^ 

the  double  voice  lines  signifying  "speech  from  both 
figures." 

Primitive  peoples  have  been  thus  versatile  in  represent- 
ing not  only  visual  forms,  but  sounds,  ac- 
tions, feelings,  and  the  most  abstract  concep- 
tions.    The  characters  were  more  and  more 

conventionalized  with  continued  use,  espe-  FlG-  27-— Con- 
versation. 

daily  among  the  peoples  who  attained  any  (From  Hoffman.) 
degree  of  civilization.  In  many  cases  the  characters  quite 
lost  their  original  resemblance  to  the  thing  signified  and 
were  mere  arbitrary  signs,  to  the  writers,  of  an  idea  or  its 
word-name,  or_both.  The  ancient  Chinese  symbol  for 

sun  (  •  )  thus  became  j      j,  some  of  the  changes  be- 

V  f=l 

ing  due  to  the  greater  ease  of  drawing  straight  lines  with 
the  Chinese  brush-pen.  So  J  t  j,  the  character  for  moon, 

r-l  IS 

became     I    7  .     So  the  Accadian  character  t».a»f>  foi 


ic  ui  icpicacui- 

in 


THE  HISTORY  OF  BEADING  199 

\& 

sky,  is  a  simplified  form  of  ^SEp^;  a  star.    The  idea- 


gram  for  Nineveh  was  £?T  <|  .  which  was  derived  from 

the  archaic  form  £HTXD5<J  T  •    This  older  form  was  the 

ideographic  picture  of  a  house  inclosing  the  ideogram  of 
a  fish,  and  showing  that  "Imperial  Nineveh  was  at  first, 
as  its  name  implies,  merely  a  collection  of  huts  of  fisher- 
men." (Taylor.)  tl  t^j 

The   modern   Chinese   character  for  song,        PJ  ,  is 


conventionalized   from   ^^  PV*'   ^e  cnarac^ers  f°r  a*1 

$4  fcldl 

ear  and  a  bird.    So  their  character  for  light,  ^^  f2!  ,  is 

from   €y)»  representing  the  sun  and  moon.     Other  ex- 

amples will  be  given  in  speaking  of  the  derivation  of  our 
alphabet. 

The  meanings  of  the  characters  also  underwent  gradual 
changes,  in  many  cases,  as  suggested  in  part  in  the  illustra- 
tions already  given.  This  occurs,  of  course,  with  the  words 
and  concepts  of  any  language,  as  time  goes  on.  But  the 
comparatively  limited  number  of  available  picture-char- 
acters compelled  a  very  great  extension  of  their  meanings, 
by  metaphor,  etc.,  as  the  number  of  ideas  to  be  expressed 


200  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

increased.  Among  the  Egyptians,  for  example,  the  ostrich 
feather,  besides  its  direct  meaning,  came  to  serve  as  the 
symbol  for  justice,  its  feathers  being  supposed  to  be  of 
equal  length.  A  roll  of  papyrus  came  to  mean  knowledge. 
The  figure  of  a  calf  running  toward  water  meant  thirst, 
a  brandished  whip  was  the  symbol  of  power,  and  so  on. 
Of  these  extensions  of  meaning  Clodd  writes : 1  "  Obviously, 
this  presentment  of  ideas  through  graphic  designs  into 
which  metaphor,  often  bordering  on  enigma,  had  to  be  read, 
implied  good  memories  and  clear  grasp  of  association  on 
the  part  of  the  interpreter.  Any  doubt  or  ambiguity, 
with  resulting  confusion,  as  to  the  meaning  of  a  symbol, 
rendered  it  worse  than  useless." 

The  additions  of  determinants,  especially  in  the  Egyptian 
and  Chinese  languages,  helped  the  matter  considerably. 
Thus  the  addition  of  an  ear  to  the  character  for  bird  gave 
the  meaning  of  song  to  the  whole,  as  we  have  seen,  and  simi- 
larly with  the  succeeding  figure  for  light.  With  the  Chinese, 
repeating  the  character  for  woman  made  it  stand  for 
"strife,"  and  three  women  stood  for  "intrigue."  An  ear 
between  two  doors  gave  the  total  meaning  "  to  listen." 

By  the  use  of  another  class  of  determinants,  referring  to 
whole  groups  of  words,  a  still  larger  number  of  total  mean- 
ings could  be  added.  Thus  for  the  Chinese,  says  Clodd, 
the  sign  for  white  had,  "with  a  tree  prefixed,  the  meaning 
of  'cypress,'  with  the  sign  for  man  it  means  'elder  brother,' 
1  "  Story  of  the  Alphabet,"  p.  122. 


I 
THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  2OI 

with  the  sign  for  'manes'  it  means  the  vital  principle  that 
survives  death."  So  the  sign  for  tree  had  about  nine 
hundred  combinations,  "  to  indicate  various  kinds  of  trees 
and  wood,  things  made  of  wood,  etc." 

But  all  the  devices  and  skill  of  the  primitive  pictog- 
raphers,  and  all  the  keen  insight  with  which  primitive 
readers  interpreted  the  picture-characters  and  picture- 
stories,  could  not  and  did  not  make  the  picture-languages 
suffice  for  the  growing  needs  of  the  more  progressive 
peoples.  While  picture-writing  has  certain  advantages  over 
the  phonetic  systems,  as  may  be  shown  later,  it  has  certain 
inherent  limitations  which  are  fatal  to  its  exclusive  use  as  a 
means  of  communication  among  civilized  people.  There 
comes  a  time  when  the  ideas  become  too  numerous  for  the 
"symbols  to  go  round,"  and  when  there  need  to  be  divi- 
sions into  parts  of  speech  and  arrangement  into  sentences. 
It  may  well  be  that  had  no  phonetic  system  been  found, 
the  ingenuity  of  Egypt  or  Babylonia  or  of  ancient  Greece 
might  have  found  some  way  of  adapting  a  pictograph 
system  to  the  needs  of  the  changing  times.  With  pictog- 
raphy, as  with  the  gesture  language,  there  were  doubtless 
potentialities  left  unrealized,  through  displacement  of  the 
system  by  a  convenient  successor.  Yet  it  is  significant  that, 
of  the  peoples  who  never  attained  to  an  alphabet,  none  de- 
veloped their  pictography  or  other  system  of  writing  beyond 
or  even  to  the  point  of  excellence  which  pictography  reached 
among  the  nations  which  did  develop  an  alphabet. 


202  THE  HISTORY   OF  READING 

In  the  New  World,  only  the  peoples  of  Central  America 
and  Mexico  seem  to  have  passed  the  pictograph  stage,  and 
these  did  not  attain  to  a  true  alphabet.  In  the  Old  World, 
only  the  Chinese  and  the  various  civilizations  about  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  seem  to  have  reached  any  sort  of 
phonetic  system. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE    EVOLUTION    OF     AN     ALPHABET     AND    OF     READING 
BY   ALPHABETIC    SYMBOLS 

DURING  the  ages  in  which  picture-writing  was  practically 
the  sole  means  of  written  communication,  the  various 
spoken  languages  had  been  keeping  pace  in  their  devel- 
opment with  the  needs  of  the  civilizations  in  which  they 
were  used .  The  further  need  was  of  some  sort  of  "  graphs ' ' 
which  would  represent  to  the  eye  the  sounds  of  these  spoken 
languages,  as  sounds.  This  would  solve  for  all  time  the 
problem  of  facile  communication,  in  writing,  of  all  that 
man  had  to  communicate.  But  it  was  very  long  before 
it  dawned  upon  men  that  all  the  words  which  men  utter 
are  expressed  by  a  few  sounds,  and  that  all  that  was 
needed  was  "to  select  from  the  big  and  confused  mass 
of  ideograms,  phonograms,  and  all  their  kin,  a  certain 
number  of  signs  to  denote,  unvaryingly,  certain  sounds."  1 
Such  a  step  meant  the  birth  of  an  alphabet,  "one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  momentous  triumphs  of  the  human 
mind."  By  the  use  of  only  twenty- six  simple  characters 
we  may  represent  to  the  eye  all  that  men  say  or  have 
said,  in  languages  whose  vocabularies  have  enlarged 
until  they  number  hundreds  of  thousands  of  words. 

1  Clodd,  p.  124. 
203 


204  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

Could  the  pre-phonetic  scribe  of  Egypt  have  had  a 
vision  of  such  a  system  and  its  possibilities,  he  would 
have  deemed  it  the  miracle  of  miracles.  His  thousands 
of  characters  and  his  fertility  of  resource  in  their  use. 
were  taxed  to  their  utmost  to  produce  results  that  were 
far  inferior  to  the  work  of  these  simple  letter-forms. 

The  alphabet  came  by  degrees.  There  was  no  out- 
and-out  invention  of  the  forms  or  of  their  meanings.  In 
the  first  place  very  many  of  the  simplified  picture-char- 
acters had  naturally  come  to  suggest,  immediately,  the 
spoken  names  of  the  ideas  which  they  signified.  This 
name  was  often  the  same  as  another  word  of  different 
meaning,  as  in  the  case  of  sun  and  son;  and  the  character 
for  the  former  came  to  stand  also  for  the  latter  and  was 
thus  a  true  phonogram,  or  sound-picture,  a  "graph" 
symbolizing  the  word-sound  as  such.  This  use  of  the 
characters  as  phonograms  did  not  help  very  much  in 
itself,  as,  for  the  most  part,  the  same  number  of  char- 
acters would  still  be  needed  though  each  should  repre- 
sent a  word-sound.  But  the  thought  thus  came  that  a 
character  might  represent  a  sound  as  such,  independent 
of  the  sound's  meaning.  From  this  the  significant  ad- 
vance was  made  of  representing  a  polysyllabic  word  by  a 
succession  of  characters  each  representing  the  sound  of  one 
of  its  syllables,  practically  the  rebus  with  which  children 
puzzle  each  other  to  this  day.  So,  says  Taylor,1  "  Prior 

1 "  Early  History  of  Mankind,"  p.  94. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  205 

Burton's  name  is  sculptured  in  St.  Saviour's  Church  as  a 
cask  with  a  thistle  on  it,  burr-tun.  Indeed,  the  puzzles 
of  this  kind  in  children's  books  keep  alive  to  our  own 
day  the  great  transition  stage  from  picture-writing  to 
word-writing,  the  highest  intellectual  effort  of  one  period 
in  our  history  coming  down,  as  so  often  happens,  to  be 
the  child's  play  of  a  later  time."  So,  in  Egyptian,  a 
figure  on  a  seat,  hes,  with  the  character  for  eye,  iri,  stood 
for  Hesiri,  their  name  for  the  God  Osiris.  The  Aztecs 
had  gone  so  far  as  to  write  their  proper  names  in  this 
rebus-fashion.  Indeed  Taylor1 
thinks  it  probable  that  the  ad- 
vance from  ideograms  to  phono-  -^4lfvvZ^>>-  « c  l 
grams  arose  from  the  necessity  Fl(J  2g3 

of  expressing  proper  names.    In 

the  Aztec  pictographs  the  name  of  King  Itzcoatl  (Knife- 
Snake  or  Weapon-Snake)  was  sometimes  written  as  in  the 
first  figure  above,  the  stone  knives  on  the  back  of  the  snake 
being  named  itz(tli)  and  the  snake  being  named  Coatl. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  name  was  written  as  in  the  second 
figure.  Here  the  first  syllable,  itz,  is  represented  by  a 
weapon,  itz(tli),  the  lower  character.  But  above  this 
appears,  not  the  figure  of  a  snake,  but  an  earthen  pot, 
co(mitl),  surmounted  by  the  sign  for  water  a(tl).  Thus 

/  \ 

1  "The  Alphabet,"  Vol.  I,  p.  22.    . 

2  From  Tylor's  "  Early  History  of  Mankind,"  reproduced  by  permis- 
sion of  Holt  &  Co. 


206  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

the  two  latter  pictures  were  used  to  suggest  a  total  sound, 
the  name  of  an  object  totally  unlike  either  picture.  So 
when  the  Spaniards  came  to  Mexico,  the  Aztecs  wrote  the 
word  Paternoster  in  their  own  characters  as  best  they 
could,  as  shown  in  Figure  29,  the  characters  in  order  being 
named  pan(tli),  a  flag,  te(tl),  a  stone,  noch(tli),  a  prickly 
pear,  and  again  te(tl),  a  stone. 

This  Mexican  writing  .illustrates  a  still  further  and 
very  important  step,  beyond  the  rebus,  toward  the  for- 
mation of  an  alphabet.  It  will  be  noticed  that  some- 


pa-  te  noch-          ta 

FIG.  39.  —  Pictographic  title  of  Latin  paternoster  (Mexican). 
(From  Hoffman.) 

times  the  character  is  used  to  stand,  not  for  the  sound 
of  the  whole  word  which  it  literally  represents,  but 
for  that  word's  initial  sound  or  syllable.  By  this  prin- 
ciple of  aerology,  as  it  is  called,  first  steps  were  taken 
in  the  breaking  up  of  the  word,  and  especially  of  the 
syllable,  into  constituent  sounds.  With  the  results  of 
sound  analysis  constantly  before  us  in  the  lettered  words 
of  our  printed  page,  we  have  arrived  at  an  over-con- 
sciousness of  the  elements,  as  we  call  them,  of  which 
words  are  composed.  But  for  primitive  man  and  for  the 
young  child  the  spoken  word  is  a  unit,  without  separable 
parts;  as  graphophone  records,  indeed,  show  that  it  is, 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  207 

as  we  have  seen,  for  all  of  us.  The  analysis  into  syl- 
lables came  late,  came  with  difficulty,  and  came  to  but 
few  nations  at  all. 

Dr.  Judd,  in  his  "Genetic  Psychology  for  Teachers" 
(p.  207),  thinks  the  child  makes  for  himself  a  beginning 
of  such  analysis  when  he  says  over  words  which  contain 
similar  sounds  "with  obvious  delight  at  the  similarity 
he  has  discovered.  The  pleasure  which  children  get  from 
such  combinations  as  ding-dong,  see-saw,  is  evidently  due 
to  the  like  sounds  at  the  beginning  of  these  syllables,  and 
the  interesting  contrast  in  the  later  sounds."  Some  of 
my  readers  will  recall  with  me  the  pleasure  of  using  such 
"secret  languages"  of  childhood  as  combined  the  initial 
sounds  of  our  words  with  some  absurd  constant,  —  as  when 
we  mystified  all  but  the  initiated  by  shouting,  "Igery 
wigery  nogery  gogery  togery  schoogery  togery  morgery," 
(I  will  not  go  to  school  to-morrow) . 

To  return  to  the  rebus- writing,  we  have  here  the  use  of 
signs  for  word-sounds  independently  of  any  reference  to 
meanings.  The  direct  suggestiveness  of  the  picture-char- ' 
acters  was  lost  in  favor  of  their  secondary  suggestion  of  a 
name.  They  were  now  pure  phonographs,  or  sound-sym- 
bols. It  seems  probable  that  this  transition  step  was  taken 
regularly  through  the  efforts  to  represent  proper  names,  as 
with  the  Aztecs.  The  Mayas  of  Yucatan  went  further 
and  used  the  rebus-principle  with  words  generally.  Of 
course,  sentences  as  well  as  words  could  be  written  rebus- 


208  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

fashion;  as  in  the  old  example  cited  by  Taylor,1  "I  saw 
a  boy  swallow  a  goose-berry,"  represented  by  pictures  of 
an  eye,  a  saw,  a  boy,  a  swallow,  a  goose,  and  a  berry. 

Many  characters  came  to  represent  homophones,  or 
words  of  like  sound  but  unlike  meaning.  As  already 
mentioned,  the  character  (£^ ,  sun,  could  be  used  to  repre- 
sent the  word  son.  The  picture  of  a  pear  could  represent 
that  fruit  when  used  as  a  pictograph,  or  as  a  phonograph 
could  represent  any  of  the  several  words  having  the  same 
sound,  as  pair  or  pare.  So  a  pen  might  serve  as  an  ideo- 
graph for  write,  or  as  a  phonograph  for  right,  rite,  or 
wright,  according  to  the  context. 

The  Chinese  have  a  great  many  of  these  homophones. 
Their  language  is  confined  to  monosyllables,  and  there  are 
but  a  few  hundred  of  these.  Naturally  enough,  there- 
fore, each  of  these  must  serve  for  a  great  variety  of  totally 
different  meanings.  The  distinctions  cannot  be  made  by 
variant  spellings  like  our  write  and  right,  as  they  have 
never  analyzed  their  words  into  letter-sounds.  It  might 
be  thought  that  the  context  would  suffice  to  give  the  clew 
to  the  meaning  intended,  as  when  write  is  heard  in  our 
spoken  English.  But  the  Chinese  homophones  are  too 
numerous  for  this.  So  hi  speaking  they  use  four  varieties 
of  tone  or  accent,  practically  increasing  the  number  of 
spoken  words  to  twelve  hundred  and  three.2  In  writing, 
they  place  after  the  word  phonograph  an  ideograph  char- 

1 1,  p.  22.          J  Taylor,  "The  Alphabet,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  28-30. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  2Og 

acter  as  a  determinative,  giving  the  needed  clew  to  the 
meaning  intended.  To  take  an  example  from  Taylor, 
the  word  pa  "has  in  Chinese  eight  distinct  significations; 
that  is,  there  are  eight  different  words  which  are  thus  pro- 
nounced. The  phonogram  expressing  pa  is  apparently 
a  conventionalized  picture  of  the  tail  of  some  animal. 
This  phonograph  character,  when  followed  by  the  char- 
acter for  'plants,'  denotes  a  banana  tree;  with  the  key 
for  'iron'  it  denotes  a  'war-chariot,'  with  the  key  for  'sick- 
ness' it  means  a  'scar,'  with  the  key  of  'mouth'  it  stands 
for  a  'cry,'  and  so  on.  The  Chinese  written  language 
practically  requires  but  1144  phonetic  signs  and  214  ideo- 
graphic keys.  And  by  means  of  these  1358  conventional- 
ized pictures,  taken  in  groups,  two  and  two  together,  any 
one  of  the  40,000  words  in  the  Chinese  language  can  be 
written  down  without  ambiguity." 

Here  in  this  rebus-phonograph  stage,  however,  the  Chi- 
nese have  staid,  "stuck,"  to  use  a  colloquialism,  for  thou- 
sands of  years.  With  all  their  acuteness  it  never  occurred 
to  them  to  analyze  their  monosyllables,  acrologically  or 
otherwise,  and  arrive  at  their  A  B  C's.  At  any  rate  the 
usefulness  of  such  a  procedure  never  dawned  upon  them. 
As  one  of  the  baneful  results,  according  to  Taylor,  it  may 
fairly  be  said  that  with  the  Chinese  method  it  takes  twenty 
years  instead  of  five  to  learn  to  read  and  write,  and  most 
people  cannot  be  expected  to  attain  to  these  arts. 

The  Chinese  had  thus  gone  so  far  as  to  construct  a 
p 


2IO  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

syllabary,  a  set  of  symbols  for  syllable  sounds,  each  syllable 
constituting  a  word.  The  Aztecs,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
by  the  use  of  the  rebus  broken  up  their  proper  names  into 
syllables,  as  in  the  case  of  Itzcoatl ;  and,  by  the  acrological 
use  of  a  character  to  stand  for  the  first  syllable  of  its  name, 
had  analyzed  into  syllables  words  that  were  other  than 
proper  names.  Further  the  Aztecs  did  not  go.  The 
Mayas  of  Yucatan,  alone  of  all  the  peoples  of  the  New 
World,  went  still  further  and  analyzed  syllables,  as  we 
shall  see. 

Syllabism  is  best  illustrated  perhaps,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Japanese  writing  from  the  Chinese.  Unlike 
the  Chinese,  the  Japanese  language  is  polysyllabic.  About 
the  third  century  A.D.,  when  Japan  came  in  contact  with 
the  civilization  and  religion  of  China,  she  adopted  the 
Chinese  characters,  or  verbal  phonograms,  as  terms  in 
which  to  write  her  own  language.  A  selection  was  made 
of  the  phonograms  which  conveniently  approximated  the 
sounds  of  the  Japanese  syllables,  and  the  entire  Japanese 
language  was  written  in  these  syllable-characters,  much 
as  the  Aztecs  had  written  their  proper  names.  According 
to  Taylor,  the  Japanese  have  but  five  vowel  sounds  and 
fifteen  consonantal  sounds,  or  seventy-five  possible  syl- 
labic combinations  of  a  consonant  followed  by  a  vowel. 
As  many  of  these  possible  combinations  do  not  actually 
occur,  less  than  fifty  distinct  syllabic  signs  suffice  for  the 
writing  of  all  Japanese  words. 


THE  HISTORY   OF   READING  211 

The  Japanese  have  two  syllabaries,  both  derived  in- 
dependently from  the  Chinese  before  the  end  of  the  ninth 
century  A.D.  One  has  about  three  hundred  signs  and  is 
rather  cumbrous.  The  other  "comprises  only  a  single 
sign,  written  more  or  less  cursively,  for  each  of  the  forty- 
seven  syllabic  sounds  in  the  Japanese  language."  The 
Chinese  characters  were  much  simplified,  and  all  determi- 
natives, homophones,  etc.,  omitted ;  so  that  the  Japanese 
is,  according  to  Taylor,  "one  of  the  best  syllabaries  which 
has  ever  been  constructed." l  "Here,  however,"  continues 
Taylor,  "  the  development  has  stopped  short.  The  fact  that 
during  more  than  a  thousand  years  it  should  never  have 
occurred  to  a  people  so  ingenious  and  inventive  as  the  Jap- 
anese to  develop  their  syllabary  into  an  alphabet  may  suffice 
to  show  that  the  discovery  of  the  alphabetic  principle  of 
writing  is  not  such  an  easy  or  obvious  matter  as  might 
be  supposed."  The  Japanese  are  at  last  just  beginning, 
as  it  would  seem,  the  adoption  of  the  alphabet  that  we  use. 

The  cuneiform  writing  of  ancient  Chaldea,  Babylonia, 
and  Assyria,  as  we  have  seen,  went  through  the  usual 
stages  of  pictograph  and  ideograph,  and  'in  very  early 
times  arrived  at  phonograms  and  a  syllabary.  Their 
language  was  polysyllabic,  and  it  seems  that  sometimes 
a  character  which  had  come  to  denote  the  name  of  an 
object  rather  than  the  object  itself,  that  is,  had  become  a 
phonogram,  was  used  further,  by  aerology,  to  denote 

1  "The  Alphabet,"  Vol.  I,  p.  36. 


212  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

simply  the  initial  syllable  of  the  word.  Generally,  how 
ever,  the  characters  for  certain  dissyllables,  which  by 
phonetic  decay  had  worn  to  monosyllables,  came  to  be 
used  as  phonographs  for  these  monosyllabic  sounds;  and 
these  characters  were  then  used,  as  by  the  Japanese,  to 
write  the  syllables  of  the  polysyllabic  words.  Thus,  to 
write  their  word  for  "soul,"  pronounced  nap-sat,  they 

combined  the  syllabic  sign  ^^~|>  n^P,  which  originally 
meant  "light,"  with  the  sign  for  sat,  originally  "mountain," 
giving  the  total  character  ^^1^  ^  for  "soul."  Their 

language  had  many  homophones,  and  determinatives  had 
to  be  employed  as  with  the  Chinese.  In  the  Assyrian 
cuneiform  the  mixture  of  variants,  homophones,  ideo- 
grams, determinatives,  etc.,  made  the  writing  clumsy 
and  difficult  to  read.  In  the  eighth  century  B.C.,  accord- 
ing to  Taylor,  the  Proto-Medic  tribes  borrowed  the  cunei- 
form characters  and  effected  a  simplification  somewhat 
as  when  the  Japanese  syllabary  was  constructed  from  the 
Chinese  ideograms.  They  thus  reduced  the  Assyrian 
cuneiform  to  a  "comparatively  simple  and  certain  syllabary 
of  ninety-six  characters,"  retaining  only  about  half  a  dozen 
of  the  determinative  ideograms.  But  here  again  there  was 
arrest.  And  most  if  not  all  of  the  forms  of  the  cuneiform 
writing,  except  the  Persian,  stopped  short  of  the  construc- 
tion of  a  true  alphabet,  and  were  content  with  the  use  of 
characters  for  syllables  only. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  213 

The  Egyptian  writing,  it  is  certain  from  the  evidence 
of  the  monuments,  went  through  the  usual  stages  of  primi- 
tive pictographs  and  ideographs,  had  its  homophones  and 
determinatives  like  the  Chinese,  and  went  through  its 
stages  of  rebus,  aerology,  and  syllabic  signs.  Up  to  this 
point,  as  Taylor  says,1  it  "offers  a  remarkable  parallel  to 
the  development  of  other  primitive  methods  of  writing, 
such  as  the  cuneiform  or  Chinese."  But  the  Egyptians 
went  further,  and  analyzed  the  syllable.  Indeed,  in  the 
very  oldest  of  all  the  Egyptian  inscriptions,  according  to 
Taylor,  the  inscription  of  King  Sent,  which  indeed  he 
believes  to  be  "the  oldest  written  record  in  existence," 
three  alphabetic  characters  are  employed  to  spell  the 


monarch's  name,  which  reads  I     _=rN_  I.3    "Two  of 


our  English  letters,"  he  thinks,  "  n  and  d,  are  derived,  in 
strict  historical  filiation,  from  two  of  the  alphabetic 
signs,  AAAMA  and  « — ">=."  These  and  some  other  origi- 
nals of  our  letters  he  thus  finds  to  be  "older  than 
the  pyramids  —  older  probably  than  any  other  existing 
monument  of  human  civilization  with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  the  signs  of  the  zodiac."  3 
Thus  early  had  the  Egyptians  reached  an  ultimate 

1 1,  p.  60. 

J  These  and  the  other  cuts  and  quotations  from  Taylor  are  repro- 
duced, by  permission,  from  Taylor's  "  The  Alphabet,"  copyright  by 
Edward  Arnold,  London.  8  I,  p.  62. 


214  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

analysis  of  the  word  and  syllable  into  letter-sounds,  into 
vowels  and  consonants.  The  difficulty  of  such  analysis 
must  indeed  have  been  very  great,  as  shown  by  the  fact 
that  astute  peoples  like  the  Babylonians,  Assyrians,  Medes, 
Chinese,  and  Japanese  never  succeeded  in  making  it. 
"  Symbols  for  vowel  sounds  are  found  in  the  syllabaries 
of  some  of  these  nations,  but  the  more  difficult  conception 
of  a  consonant  was  not  attained  or  even  approached. 
Easy  as  it  seems  to  ourselves  who  are  familiar  with  it,  the 
notion  of  a  consonant,  a  sound  that  cannot  be  sounded 
except  in  conjunction  with  some  other  sound  different 
from  itself,  is  by  no  means  so  simple  as  it  may  appear.  It 
involves  the  decomposition  of  the  syllable  into  its  ultimate 
phonetic  elements  —  the  mental  isolation,  for  instance,  of 
the  unpronounceable  sound  t,  which  is  common  to  the 
articulations  tea,  tie,  toe,  and  two,  and  yet  is  not  identical 
with  any  of  them."  l 

Taylor  thinks  the  Egyptians  were  aided  in  making  this 
analysis  by  the  nature  of  their  vowel  sounds.  These  seem 
to  have  been  of  a  rather  indeterminate  character,  like  the 
italicized  vowels  in  about,  assert,  bird,  but,  dowble.  Their 
words  were  very  often  written  without  the  vowel-signs, 
the  vowel  being  perhaps  regarded  as  inherent  in  the  pre- 
ceding consonant.  So  only  initial  and  final  vowels  were 
necessarily  written  down,  except  for  emphasis.  For  exam- 
ple, their  character  -\  (  .  originally  represented  ses,  a  bolt, 
1  Taylor,  "The  Alphabet,"  Vol.  I,  p.  62. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  215 

and  came  to  stand  for  the  syllable  se.  With  \\,  a 
character  used  for  the  vowel  i,  the  combination  ~yt~  is 
read  si,  "  the  vowel  sound  of  e  being  elided,  so  that  the 
symbol  «  \  I  has  here  the  power  of  a  pure  consonant. 
It  may  be  regarded  as  probable  that  it  was  in  some  such 
manner  that  the  difficult  conception  of  a  consonant  grew 
up,  slowly  and  almost  unconsciously."  * 

The  principle  of  aerology  helped  constantly  hi  the 
analysis.  Almost  any  one  of  the  four  hundred  Egyptian 
phonograms  could  be  employed,  it  seems,  to  denote  the 
initial  sound  of  the  corresponding  word.  Gradually, 
however,  for  any  given  alphabetic  sound,  one  or  two  or 
three  of  the  more  easily  written  characters  representing 
words  beginning  with  this  sound  came  to  commonly 
stand  for  the  sound.  It  is  as  though  we  should  take 
seriously  the  rhyme,  "A  is  an  Archer  who  shot  at  a 
frog,  B  is  a  Butcher  who  has  a  big  dog,"  and  reversing  the 
terms,  make  the  picture  of  an  archer  stand  for  the  letter 
A  and  that  of  a  butcher  for  the  letter  B,  ignoring  all  the 
other  words  and  things  that  A  and  B  might  stand  for. 

So  the  Egyptians  came  to  represent  all  their  sounds 
by  an  alphabet  of  forty-five  characters,  having  sometimes 
two  or  three  characters  for  the  same  sound,  as  with 
c  and  k,  c  and  s,  etc.,  in  our  alphabet.  There  was  a 
further  simplification  in  practice  until  the  Egyptian 
alphabet,  as  ordinarily  used,  consisted  of  but  twenty- 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  65. 


2l6 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 


five  letters.     Figure  30  shows  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphic 
alphabet,  with  the  letter-names  and  approximate  equiv 

EGYPTIAN  HIEROGLYPHIC  ALPHABET. 


_ 

»_ 

Normal 
Cb»ructera. 

Taritat*. 

1 

a 

eagle 

^ 

a 

a 

reed 

1 

* 

« 

arm 

0 

4 

• 

parallels 

\\ 

( 

i 

double  reed 

M 

6 

* 

chick 

«   fl 

7 

Je 

bowl 

^=3* 

U 

1 

* 

throno 

o 

* 

7 

tuigle 

/) 

10 

X 

sieve 

o 

1- 

11 

1. 

inlander 

ro 

1?   *— 

12 

$ 

knotted  cord 

! 

1 

U 

1 

semicircle 

« 

1 

14 

.< 

hand 

c=s 

15 

r 

snake 

"^ 

i       & 

18 

0 

tongs 

T      t 

17 

« 

cLairback 

— 

P          1 

innnantcd 

T»T  ^ 

11 

-• 

ganlcu 

<T^"l 

1     H     1 

19 

j» 

shutter 

9 

^ 

» 

* 

leg 

J 

%» 

» 

/ 

cerastes 

«L^ 

n 

r 

jnouth 

<=> 

n 

I 

lioness 

A 

FIG.  30.    (From  Taylor's  "The  Alphabet.") 

alents   in  our  alphabet.     The   pictorial   origin    of    the 
Egyptian  letters  is  evident  enough. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  217 

Thus  very  early  the  Egyptians  came  to  have  this  set  of 
simple  signs,  sufficient  in  itself  to  express  all  that  they 
thought  and  wrote.  But  they  never  realized  its  sufficiency, 
and  continued  to  use  their  ideographs,  syllabic  signs,  etc., 
side  by  side  with  their  letters.  As  Taylor  says,  we  "find  a 
word  spelt  out  alphabetically,  a  needless  syllabic  sign  is  then 
added,  and  this  is  followed  by  an  unnecessary  ideogram. 
So  many  crutches  were  thought  necessary,  that  walking 
became  an  art  of  the  utmost  difficulty."  l  All  that  re- 
mained to  be  done  was  to  reject  the  superfluous  mass  of 
ideograms,  homophones,  syllables,  and  what  not,  and  use 
the  nearly  perfect  alphabet  which  had  at  last  evolved 
itself.  But  the  scribes  clung  to  their  ancient  characters 
with  a  greater  tenacity  even  than  we  do  to  our  silent  letters, 
and  the  writing  of  Egypt  remained  a  confusion,  their 
magnificent  discovery  going  begging  for  a  nation  that 
could  make  use  of  it. 

During  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was 
generally  supposed  that  the  modified  Egyptian  alphabet 
had  been  borrowed  by  the  Semites,  and  had  been  put  into 
convenient  form  by  that  businesslike  Semitic  people,  the 
Phoenicians.  Thence  transmitted  to  the  Greeks  in  com- 
mercial intercourse,  it  had  been  further  modified  and 
handed  on  to  the  Romans ;  and  thence,  as  we  know,  came 
our  Latin  script.  Recent  investigations,  however,  particu- 
larly the  excavations  in  Crete  reported  by  Sir  Arthur 
'I,  P.  68. 


2l8  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

Evans,  render  the  theory  of  Egypto-Phcenician  origin  ex- 
tremely doubtful,  if  not  impossible.  Greece  is  far  older 
than  has  been  thought.  A  flourishing  civilization  has 
been  shown  to  have  existed  in  the  ^Egean  at  least  nearly 
3000  B.C.,  with  centers  in  Crete  and  probably  later  in 
Mycenae.  There  was  intimate  intercourse  between  this 
civilization  and  that  of  Egypt  about  2500  B.C.  Works  of 
art  found  at  Mycenae  show  that  Greece  and  Assyria  were  in 
contact  fifteen  hundred  years  before  Homer's  time,  though 
Greek  art  had  even  then  its  own  characteristic  features.1 
Mr.  Hogarth,  in  his  "Authority  and  Archaeology"  (p.  230), 
says:  "Man  in  Hellas  was  more  highly  civilized  before 
history  than  when  history  begins  to  record  his  state ;  and 
there  existed  human  society  in  the  Hellenic  area,  organized 
and  productive,  to  a  period  so  remote  that  its  origins 
were  more  distant  from  the  age  of  Pericles  than  that 
age  is  from  our  own.  We  have  probably  to  deal  with  a 
total  period  of  civilization  in  the  y£gean  not  much  shorter 
than  in  the  Nile  Valley."  And  these  people  possessed 
an  indigenous  system  of  picture-writing  and  a  system  of 
signs  which  were  at  least  syllabic,  perhaps  in  some  degree 
alphabetic. 

The  ^Egean  script  seems  to  have  been  in  use  long  before 
Phoenicia  existed.  The  ^Egean  civilization  only  fell  when 
Mycenae,  its  later  center,  though  Crete  was  probably  its 
place  of  origin,  was  overrun  by  the  Dorians  in  the  twelfth 

1  See  Clodd,  "Story  of  the  Alphabet,"  p.  187. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  2IQ 

century  B.C.  Phoenician  history,  on  the  other  hand, 
hardly  goes  back  of  1600  B.C.,  and  Phoenicia's  chance  for 
commercial  importance  seems  only  to  have  come  with  the 
fall  of  the  Mycenaean  civilization.  Between  this  time 
and  the  rise  of  the  later  Greece  that  we  know,  Phoenicia 
was  dominant  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  seems  to  have 
taken  the  alphabetic  material  that  was  to  be  found  and 
given  it  a  more  practical  form.  However,  she  used  ma- 
terials that  were  very  much  older  than  herself,  and  derived 
perhaps  as  much  from  Greece  as  from  Egypt  and  from 
other  sources.  The  Cretan  signs  have  similarities  with 
the  Egyptian  and  with  the  Cypriote  or  Cyprus  syllabary, 
and  with  the  little-known  Hittite.  But  while  there  are 
certain  indications  of  a  common  origin,  it  cannot  be  said 
that  one  is  derived  from  the  other. 

The  busy  Phoenicians  adapted  and  unified  the  existing 
systems,  changing  and  perhaps  borrowing  characters  as 
needed,  and  the  alphabet  of  later  Greece  was  the  result. 
Of  some  of  the  characters  of  this  alphabet  it  seems  possi- 
ble to  trace  the  actual  pictorial  origin.  For  example,  the 
Egyptian  hieroglyphic  owl,  mulak,  becoming  the  sign  for 
its  initial  letter  m,  was  conventionalized  successively  by 
the  Egyptian  scribes  to  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  forms 
shown  in  Figure  31 .  The  first  character  on  the  lower  line 
is  from  the  Semitic;  and,  Taylor  thinks,  is  a  modification 
of  the  Egyptian  form.  Then  follow  three  successive 
Greek  forms  of  the  same,  reaching  our  capital  M.  The 


220  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

ears  of  the  owl  still  show  in  the  upper  peaks  of  the  M, 
and  the  beak  shows  in  the  angle  between. 

So  the  character  AAAAAA,  originally  a  picture  of  a 
"water-line,"  became  the  Egyptian  n;  and  it  is  said 
that  our  n  has  come  from  it.  And  so  for  D  and  others 
of  our  letters.  Whether  or  not  these  particular  lines  of 


7 


M 


FIG.  3  1.1  —  Successive  Forms  of  the  Letter  M. 


descent  are  the  true  ones,  certain  it  is  that  our  letters  and  all 
letters  seem  to  have  been  the  result  of  just  such  evolution 
from  primitive  pictures  ;  and  whether  or  not  we  are  ever 
able  to  determine  the  particular  ancestry  of  the  whole  Greek 
alphabet,  we  know  that  the  development  of  writing,  cul- 
minating in  the  production  of  alphabets,  has  proceeded 
practically  everywhere  through  the  stages  already  sketched 

1  This  and  the  other  cuts  and  quotations  from  Judd  are  reproduced, 
by  permission,  from  Judd's  "  Genetic  Psychology  for  Teachers,"  copy- 
right, 1903,  by  D.  Apple  ton  &  Co. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  221 

as  typical.  The  final  stage,  the  analysis  of  the  word  to  its 
elementary  sounds  and  their  representation  by  an  alphabet, 
seems  to  have  been  reached  by  only  a  very  few  indeed  of 
the  world's  peoples,  these  few  dwelling  in  and  about  the 
Mediterranean ;  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  Mayas 
of  Yucatan,  who  reached  high-water  mark  in  the  New 
World  by  attaining,  apparently,  to  the  use  of  a  few  real 
alphabetic  characters. 

By  borrowing  and  by  derivation  from  these  few  sources, 
some  two  hundred  and  fifty  alphabets  have  come  into 
being,  from  first  to  last.  Some  fifty  of  these  survive,  says 
Clodd,  about  half  being  found  in  India,  and  the  rest  being 
mainly  variations  of  the  Roman,  Arabic,  and  Chinese 
scripts,  the  Roman  constantly  taking  a  further  lead. 

The  analysis  into  elementary  sounds  was  made  differ- 
ently, and  in  different  degrees  of  completeness,  by  the  dif- 
ferent peoples.  A  language  may  possess  not  more  than  a 
dozen  consonants,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Finnic  or  Oeguese, 
"or  it  may  have  a  delicate  gradation  of  sounds  like  the 
Sanskrit,  which  requires  no  less  than  thirty-three  conso- 
nants and  fourteen  vowels  for  its  adequate  expression. 
Some  languages  are  especially  rich  in  sibilants,  others 
in  gutturals,  or  nasals,  or  dentals,  or  liquids,  or  vowels. 
Hence  either  more  or  fewer  symbols  of  a  particular  class 
are  required."  * 

The  Semitic  alphabet  was  mainly  consonantal,  and  so  are 

1  Taylor,  Vol.  II,  p.  368, 


222  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

usually  the  scripts  of  Asia  which  are  derived  from  it,  the 
vowels  being  only  partially  indicated.  The  Greeks  made 
a  further  and  better  analysis,  putting  superfluous  charac- 
ters to  new  uses  and  using  separate  letters  to  represent  the 
vowels,  "so  that  there  might  be  a  visible  sign  for  every 
audible  sound  of  the  human  voice."  But  great  as  is  our 
,debt  to  the  Greeks  for  the  improved  alphabet  which  they 


ILEVOLAISIMyl 
HICVlLXDIlEIM 


BtLGiCXyiLMOL 

FIG.  32.  —  Roman  Capitals.    (From  Judd.) 

bequeathed  to  us,  we  know  that  their  ideal  was  only  roughly 
approximated;  and  our  use  to-day  of  a  large  number  of 
diacritical  marks  attests  the  persistent  deficiencies  of  our 
alphabet. 

From  the  Greek  alphabet  to  our  own  the  steps  are  few 
and  well  known.  The  Romans  adopted  a  form  of  the  Greek 
alphabet  in  use  among  Greek  colonists  in  Southern  Italy  ; 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  223 

and  after  certain  modifications  with  use  and  as  influenced 
by  the  contact  with  the  later  Greek,  this  alphabet  became 
the  vehicle  of  culture  throughout  Western  Europe. 

For  inscriptions  on  monuments  and  for  other  writing 
demanding  prominence,  the  Romans  used  the  forms 
shown  in  Figure  32,  practically  our  modern  capital  letters, 
which  we  use  very  similarly.  These  simple,  sharp-angled 
letters  were  very  legible,  and  could  very  readily  be  chiselled 
on  hard  materials,  but  could  never  be  written  rapidly. 
The  Romans  early  developed  another  set  of  forms,  a  rapid, 
running  hand  used  in  business  and  in  correspondence,  a 
specimen  of  which  is  shown  in  Figure  33.  Then,  as  now, 
greater  speed  seems  to  have  meant  decreased  legibility. 


*N\Y-MN 
XJcJA 


r 

FIG.  33.  —  Roman  Cursive  Script.     (From  Judd.) 

A  compromise  form  between  the  capitals  and  the  cursive, 
or   running   hand,  was   developed   later  in  the  uncials, 
as  they  were  called,  specimens  of  which  are  shown  in 
Figure  34. 
Through  the  many  centuries  in  which  letters  were  made 


224  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

\ 

only  by  hand,  down  to  the  invention  of  printing,  the  forms 
varied  very  greatly,  according  as  legibility,  beauty,  or 
ease  and  speed  of  writing  were  desired.  When  printing 
came,  the  makers  of  types  selected  forms  that  pleased  them 
from  the  handwritings  of  the  time,  and  letters  soon  began 
to  take  stereotyped  forms.  The  German  printers  made 
the  unfortunate  choice  of  a  complicated  and  compara- 
tively illegible  Gothic  script,  and  German  readers  still 


tisesitu(v>ue 


FIG.  34.  —  Roman  Uncials.     (From  Judd.) 

suffer  the  consequences.  The  English  printers  borrowed 
a  beautiful  running  script  from  the  Italians.  This  was 
an  imitation,  by  the  fifteenth  century  Italian  printers,  of 
the  beautiful  minuscule  letters,  which  were  small,  cursive 
forms  of  the  large  uncials,  the  "inch"  letters  or  "  crooked" 
letters  shown  above.  By  this  happy  chance  of  the  early 
English  printers,  Anglo-Saxon  readers  have,  in  the  present 
somewhat  modified  forms  of  this  script,  a  set  of  symbols 
which  are  easier  to  read  and  more  convenient  to  use  than 
any  other  forms. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  225 

Thus  by  the  slow  processes  of  evolution,  through  varia- 
tion and  selection,  the  characters  used  in  reading  have 
developed  through  the  ages, — from  the  rude  pictures  of 
the  cave-dweller  to  the  printed  characters  of  the  modern 
type-setting  machine.  It  is  remarkable  how  small  a  part 
conscious  purpose  has  had  in  this  development,  how  little 
rationalization  there  has  been  of  the  characters.  They 
have  been  a  growth,  as  language  has  been ;  and  they  have 
been  allowed  to  carry  down  with  them,  from  remote  an- 
tiquity, useless  but  interesting  marks  of  their  origin,  and 
rudiments  of  their  stages  of  growth. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  PRINTED  PAGE 

IN  the  earliest  stages  of  pictography  the  pictures  are 
arranged  in  almost  every  conceivable  fashion.  The  read- 
er's eye  may  traverse  a  page  of  picture-story  with  no  con- 
straint as  to  direction  of  movement  or  sequence  of  atten- 
tion to  the  various  symbols  and  parts.  This  is  illustrated 
in  the  picture-letter  shown  in  Figure  35,  in  which  a 


FIG.  35.'    A  Picture  Letter. 

Mandan  Indian  offers  to  a  fur  trader  the  skins  of  a  buffalo, 
fish-otter,  and  fisher,  in  exchange   (  +  )  for  a  gun  and 
thirty  beaver  skins.     In  Figure  36  I  quote  another  exam- 
ple, with  description,  from  Deniker's  "Races  of  Man." 
We  go  back  to  this  protoplasmic  free  arrangement  in 

'From  Wundt's  "  Volker- Psychologic    Die  Sprache,"  published  by 
W.  Englemann,  Leipsig. 

236 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  227 

our  modern  cartoons,  and  in  certain  advertisements.  It 
is  the  all-at-once  view  that  we  take  of  objects  and  situa- 
tions as  directly  experienced  by  the  eye,  or  as  we  recall 


FlG.  36.  (After  Schoolcraft.1)  —  Petition  of  Chippeway 
Indians  to  the  President  of  the  United  States.  Example 
of  pictography.  "The  petition  is  painted  in  sym- 
bolic colours  (blue  for  water,  white  for  the  road,  etc.) 
on  a  piece  of  bark.  Figure  i  represents  the  principal 
petitioning  chief,  the  totem  of  whose  clan  is  an  em- 
blematic and  ancestral  animal  (see  Chapter  VII.),  the 
crane;  the  animals  which  follow  are  the  totems  of  his 
co-petitioners.  Their  eyes  are  all  connected  with  his 
to  express  unity  of  view  (6),  their  hearts  with  his  to 
express  unity  of  feeling.  The  eye  of  the  crane,  sym- 
bol of  the  principal  chief,  is  moreover  the  point  of 
departure  of  two  lines :  one  directed  towards  the  Presi- 
dent (claim)  and  the  other  towards  the  lakes  (object 
of  claim)." 

them  in  our  imagery.  This  primitive  lack  of  fixed  order 
in  picture-stories  is  paralleled  by  the  young  child's  lack 
of  fixed  order  in  his  speech.  To  him  the  order  of  words 
is  nothing,  at  first.  As  Dr.  Lukens  says,2  "He  wants  to 
say  it  all  at  once,  anyhow,  just  as  he  thinks  it  all  at  once.'* 
And  so  likewise  does  he  draw.  He  is  fond  of  making 

1  Reproduced  by  permission  of  Walter  Scott  Pub.  Co.,  Ltd. 
*  Pedagogical  Seminary,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  459. 


228 


THE  HISTORY   OF   READING 


FIG.  37.1  — The  Story  of  Joseph. 

picture-stories,  and  they  are  of  this  go-as-you-please  order, 
as  in  the  "Story  of  Joseph  and  his  Brethren,"  told  in  pic- 
tures to  Professor  Lukens  by  some  children. 

Even  in  the  primitive  pic- 

*«frV  «*•».£ 

*•  ***  I    4f   i   *i)    ture-writing,  however,  there  is 


FIG.  38.  —  Record  of  Departure      evident  a  tendency  to  present 

(Innuit).     (From  Clodd.)  . 

the  symbols  serially.     Figure 

38,  from  Clodd,  illustrates  this  serial  arrangement. 
Figure  39  is  a  hunting  story  engraved  by  an  Esquimau 
of  Alaska  on  an  ivory  whip,  and  shows  the  same  ar- 
rangement. 

1N.Y.  Teachers  Magazine,  April,  1899. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  229 

In  making  picture-narratives,  this  serial  order  would 
naturally  suggest  itself,  expressing  in  a  spatial  sequence 
the  temporal  succession  of  ideas  in  the  writer's  mind. 
His  story  would  often  be  more  intelligible,  too,  when 


FIG.  39.  (After  Mallery-Hoffman.1)  —  Journal  of  the 
Voyage  of  an  Esquimau  of  Alaska.  Example  of 
pictography.  The  first  figure  (i)  represents  the  story- 
teller himself,  his  right  hand  making  the  gesture  which 
indicates  "I,"  and  his  left,  turned  in  the  direction  in 
•which  he  is  going,  means  "go."  Continuing  our 
translation,  we  read  the  subsequent  figures  as  follows  : 
—  (2)  "in  a  boat"  (paddle  raised);  (3)  "sleep" 
(hand  on  the  head)  "  one  night  "  (the  left  hand  shows 
a  finger)  ;  (4)  "(on)  an  island  with  a  hut  in  the  middle" 
(the  little  point);  (5)  "  I  going  (farther)  ;"  (6)  "(arrive 
at)  an  (other)  isle  inhabited"  (without  a  point);  (7) 
"spend  (there)  two  nights;"  (8)  "hunt  with  har- 
poon;" (9)  "a  seal;"  (10)  "hunt  with  bow;"  (n) 
"return  in  canoe  with  another  person"  (two  oars 
directed  backward)  5(12)  "(to)  the  hut  of  the  encamp- 
ment." (Deniker's  "  Races  of  Man,"  p.  138.) 

the  order  in  which  it  was  to  be  read  was  thus  indi- 
cated. Very  often,  too,  the  material  upon  which  the 
writing  was  done  would  favor  the  serial  presentation, 
as  in  writing  upon  long  strips  of  bark,  or  upon  teeth, 
bones,  or  sticks. 

As  the  picture  writing  developed  and  became  more 
definite,  the  characters  came  to  be  arranged  almost  ex- 
clusively in  series,  in  more  or  less  regular  lines  ;  and  these 
lines  came  to  have  habitual  directions  which  tended  to 

1  Reproduced  by  permission  of  Walter  Scott  Pub.  Co.,  Ltd. 


230  THE  HISTORY   OF  READING 

become  fixed  for  any  given  system.  The  Egyptian  hiero- 
glyphs were  sometimes  arranged  in  horizontal  lines,  some- 
times in  vertical  columns.  There  was  no  fixed  rule  as  to 
the  direction  in  which  they  were  to  be  written,  but  they 


2 
• 


.  i  i 


FIG.  40.*    Egyptian  Hieroglyphs. 

were  read  in  the  opposite  direction  to  that  in  which  the 
animals'  heads  pointed.  Thus  in  the  first  extract  above, 
from  Budge's  "Egyptian  Language"  (p.  u),  "we  notice 
that  the  men,  the  chicken,  the  owl,  the  hawk,  and  the 
hares,  all  face  to  the  left ;  to  read  these  we  must  read  from 

1  Reproduced  by  permission  of  Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner,  &  Co. 
London. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  23! 

left  to  right,  i.e.,  towards  them.'*  In  the  second  extract 
the  arrangement  is  in  vertical  lines,  to  be  read  similarly 

in  each  line. 
1 
The  Hittites  read  from  right  to  left  and  then  returning, 

left  to  right,  as  the  ox  plows.  According  to  Hoffman 
the  groups  of  characters  composing  their  words,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  read  from  top  to  bottom.  With  the 
Easter  Islanders,  the  reading  began  in  the  lower  left-hand 
corner  and  proceeded  to  the  right,  to  the  end  of  the  line 
of  picture-characters.  Then,  according  to  Hoffman,  to  read 
the  next  line  above,  the  tablet  was  turned  upside  down 
and  thus  read  again  from  left  to  right,  to  the  end,  when 
the  reading  of  the  third  line  began  as  the  first.  The 
Semitic  writing,  in  general,  was  from  right  to  left  like  the 
modern  Hebrew.  If  we  should  collate  the  various  ways 
of  arranging  the  reading  symbols,  it  would  be  seen  that 
almost  every  conceivable  arrangement  has  been  used,  but 
that  the  tendencies  have  been  everywhere  toward  arrange- 
ment in  vertical  or  horizontal  lines. 

Turning  to  the  history  of  our  own  arrangement  of  char- 
acters, we  find  that  the  early  Greek  reading  (not,  however, 
that  of  the  Mycenaean  civilization,  in  respect  to  which 
there  is  uncertainty)  was  from  right  to  left  in  each  line, 
as  with  the  Semites.  Later,  the  reading  came  to  be  from 
right  to  left  in  the  first  line,  from  left  to  right  in  the  second, 
etc.  The  characters  faced,  too,  in  the  direction  in  which 
the  reading  was  done,  as  in  the  inscription  below,  which 


232  THE  HISTORY  OF   READING 

read  as  printed  in  the  third  line,  and  which  Taylor  sup- 
posed was  "the  oldest  Greek  sentence  in  existence."  Still 
later,  the  reading  came  to  be  from  left  to  right  in  the  first 
line,  returning  from  right  to  left.  This  arrangement 
seemed  to  be  more  convenient  for  the  scribe  and  was  gen- 
erally adopted  in  consequence.  Finally,  the  still  more  con- 
venient habit  prevailed  of  writing  and  reading  from  left  to 
right  for  all  the  lines,  and  this  has  continued  to  the  present. 
On  ancient  inscriptions  the  words  were  sometimes  sepa- 
rated from  each  other  by  dots  or  points.  The  early 


FIG.  41.     Right  to  Left  Reading  in  Early  Greek. 

practice  in  Greek  and  Latin  literary  texts,  however,  was 
usually  to  write  continuously  without  spaces  or  other 
divisions  between  the  words.  This,  says  Thompson,  in 
his  "Greek  and  Latin  Palaeography"  (p.  67),  "was  cer- 
tainly by  far  the  more  ordinary  method,  and  in  the  uncial 
vellum  manuscripts  of  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  it  may  be 
said  to  have  been  the  only  method  that  was  followed.  In 
the  documents  of  ordinary  life  the  distinction  of  words 
was,  from  early  times,  more  frequently  though  still  only 
partially  observed."  Even  when  separation  of  the  words 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  233 

gradually  appeared,  the  prepositions  were  still  attached  to 
their  related  word,  and  there  was  always  a  tendency  to  de- 
tach a  final  letter  and  to  attach  it  to  the  following  word. 
It  was  hardly  before  the  eleventh  century  that  a  perfect 
system  of  separately  written  words  was  established  in  Latin 
manuscripts. 

As  early  as  Aristotle's  time,  according  to  Thompson, 
paragraphs  were  separated  by  a  horizontal  stroke  or 
other  mark  drawn  between  the  lines  at  their  beginnings. 
Later  the  first  letter  of  the  new  paragraph  was  placed 
farther  to  the  left  and  also  came  to  be  enlarged,  and 
thus  the  separation  stroke  came  to  be  unnecessary  and 
disappeared. 

Division  of  words  at  the  end  of  the  line  was  often 
avoided  by  writing  the  last  letters  smaller,  or  by  linking 
two  or  more  letters  in  a  monogrammatic  form.  When 
the  word  had  to  be  divided,  it  was  an  ancient  practice 
to  break  off  with  a  complete  syllable.  This  was  con- 
tinued in  the  later  Greek  and  Latin  manuscripts,  though 
with  many  exceptions.  The  hyphen  connecting  parts 
thus  divided  did  not  appear  until  the  eleventh  century, 
although  a  point  was  used  somewhat  earlier,  for  the  same 
purpose.  The  further  breaking  up  of  the  written  sen- 
tence by  punctuation  marks,  quotation  marks,  etc., 
occurred  gradually,  principally  during  the  earlier  cen- 
turies of  our  era.1 

1  See  Thompson's  "Greek  and  Latin  Palaeography,"  pp.  67-71. 


234  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

The  form  of  the  modern  book  had  its  beginnings  in 
the  wooden,  wax-coated  tablets,  something  like  our  school 
slates,  which  were  used  from  the  earliest  times  in  Greece 
and  Rome.  They  were  used  for  "literary  composition, 
school  exercises,  accounts  or  rough  memoranda."  Two 
or  more  would  be  fastened  together  by  ring  hinges  at 
the  side,  the  raised  margins  of  the  tablet  protecting  the 
writing  from  being  erased.  Some  such  folded  tablet 
seems  to  have  existed  even  in  Homer's  day.1  Little 
booklets  of  tablets,  called  codices,  came  into  very  general 
use  by  the  Romans,  for  correspondence,  legal  documents, 
etc.  The  convenience  of  this  form  made  it  gradually 
supplant  the  roll  form  that  had  been  generally  used 
among  them,  and  codices,  or  books  composed  of  vellum 
sheets  instead  of  waxed  tablets,  became  common  at  Rome 
even  in  the  earliest  centuries  of  our  era.  As  the  book 
form  became  more  general,  papyrus  was  also  used  for 
the  purpose,  as  well  as  vellum. 

The  arrangement  of  lines  into  two  or  more  columns  on  the 
page  was  early  adopted  in  these  codices.  Ordinarily  a  page 
had  two  columns,  but  three  or  four  were  also  allowed. 
Thompson  states  that  the  three- column  arrangement 
seems  to  have  been  "generally  abandoned  after  the 
sixth  century." 

Paper  proper,  which  of  course  is  very  different  from 
papyrus,  although  known  to  the  Chinese  at  a  most  remote 

1  "Iliad,"  VI,  169;  referred  to  by  Thompson,  p.  20. 


THE  HISTORY  OF   READING  235 

period,  was  not  introduced  into  Europe  until  the  eighth 
century,  and  came  from  the  Arabs.  It  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  used  to  any  great  extent  by  Europeans  until 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries.  In  the  fourteenth 
century,  according  to  Thompson,  it  "began  to  rival 
vellum  as  a  material  for  books  and  in  the  course  of  the 
fifteenth  century  it  gradually  superseded  it."  Manu- 
scripts came  to  be  composed,  sometimes,  of  paper  with 
a  sheet  of  vellum  forming  the  outer  leaves  of  the  quire. 

And  so,  step  by  step,  was  evolved  the  modern  book, 
with  the  present  arrangement  of  pages  and  columns, 
and  lines  divided  by  spaces  and  marks  into  sentences, 
words,  etc.  The  invention  of  printing  stereotyped  the 
forms  that  had  up  to  that  time  found  most  favor  or  that 
were  the  most  convenient  for  the  mechanics  of  printing. 
This  caused,  to  some  extent,  an  arrest  of  the  free  develop- 
ment of  forms  of  writing.  At  any  rate,  there  resulted 
an  immense  limitation  of  the  possibilities  of  variation, 
since  very  many  had  written  where  few  could  print. 
The  history  of  the  printed  book  and  its  adornment  has 
been  written  elsewhere  and  cannot  profitably  be  even 
sketched  in  this  volume.  Some  references  to  the  ten- 
dencies as  to  line-length,  spacing,  form  of  type,  etc.,  will 
be  found  in  a  later  chapter  on  present-day  requirements 
of  the  printer. 

It  would  be  verv  interesting  and  suggestive  if  we  could 
have  a  quantitative  statement  of  the  comparative  amounts 


236  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

of  actual  reading  done  by  the  general  population  at 
various  times  in  the  world's  history,  and  at  various  stages 
in  the  development  of  writing.  Too  little  is  known  of 
culture  history  to  furnish  a  safe  basis  for  such  estimates. 
The  simpler  forms  of  picture-writing  could  of  course 
be  read  by  all  intelligent  persons  without  special  train- 
ing; so  that  at  this  stage  practically  all  were  readers, 
just  as  all  young  children  are  picture-readers.  With 
conventionalizing  of  the  characters  and  transfer  of  mean- 
ings, special  training  became  more  and  more  necessary 
and  reading  tended  to  become  limited  to  certain  privi- 
leged classes,  especially,  as  was  noted  in  our  introduc- 
tion, to  the  priesthood.  We  have  already  referred  to 
the  difficulty  of  learning  the  Chinese  syllabary;  and 
in  spite  of  the  great  reverence  which  the  Chinese  have 
for  education,  it  is  said  that  not  more  than  one  out  of  ten 
Chinamen  can  read.  The  Babylonian  and  Egyptian 
were  also  very  difficult  to  learn,  with  their  large  number 
of  characters  and  their  many  complicated  features. 
Yet  the  Babylonians  seem  to  have  made  education,  in- 
cluding tablet-writing,  compulsory  on  all  free  Chaldeans. 
Libraries  were  founded  in  all  the  chief  cities  of  Babylonia. 
They  had  librarians,  kept  the  books  or  tablets  method- 
ically arranged  and  numbered,  took  out  books  by  handing 
the  librarian  a  ticket  inscribed  with  the  requisite  number, 
etc.  The  great  number  of  their  writings  which  have 
come  down  to  us  through  so  many  thousands  of  years 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  237 

indicates  that  reading  and  writing  must  have  been  very 
general  among  them. 

Egypt  had  an  immense  literature  and  great  libraries, 
and  manuscrjpts  without  number  have  been  preserved 
to  our  own  time.  Among  the  upper  classes  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  the  power  to  read  and  write  must  have  been 
almost  as  common  as  with  ourselves,  but  the  lower  classes 
were  illiterate. 

During  the  Middle  Ages  readers  were  very  few  indeed, 
in  proportion  to  the  total  population,  and  down  to  the 
invention  of  printing  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  any  very 
large  proportion  of  the  people  were  able  to  read,  or  did 
read  habitually.  Indeed  it  seems  certain  that  there  could 
hardly  have  been,  in  any  of  the  older  civilizations,  any 
remote  approach  to  the  number  of  readers  or  to  the 
amount  of  reading  per  capita  found  in  these  days  of 
printed  books  and  papers.  The  difficulty  of  learning 
the  complicated  systems  of  writing  of  the  early  times, 
which  would  necessarily  prevent  the  mass  of  the  people 
from  ever  learning  more  than  the  barest  rudiments  at 
most,  did  not  of  course  apply  to  Greece  and  Rome.  But 
the  cost  of  the  materials  from  which  books  were  made, 
and  the  fact  that  every  one  must  be  hand-made,  and 
by  what  one  may  call  skilled  labor,  would  necessarily 
preclude  their  possession  or  use  by  the  great  majority 
of  the  people,  who  were  even  far  less  able  to  have  luxuries 
in  that  day  than  in  our  own.  Even  among  the  privi- 


238  THE  HISTORY   OF  READING 

leged  classes,  books  and  other  manuscripts  were,  from 
their  comparatively  great  expense,  necessarily  much  less 
abundant  than  in  our  time. 

The  absence  of  inexpensive  writing  material  was  very 
important.  The  papyrus,  made  from  an  Egyptian  rush 
or  reed  of  that  name,  could  not  be  produced  cheaply; 
and  although  a  sort  of  paper  was  made  in  early  times 
from  cotton,  this  material  was  very  perishable  and  un- 
satisfactory. Forsyth,  in  his  "  History  of  Ancient  Manu- 
scripts" (pp.  25-27),  says  that  the  use  of  linen  rags  for 
the  manufacture  of  paper  "was  wholly  unknown  to  the 
ancients.  Indeed,  they  did  not  understand  the  manu- 
facture of  flax  at  all,  even  if  they  possessed  the  plant." 
He  quotes  De  Quincey  as  asserting  that  the  ancients 
had  repeatedly  discovered  the  art  of  printing.  "The 
art  which  multiplied  the  legends  upon  a  coin  or  medal 
had,  in  effect,  anticipated  the  art  of  printing.  It  was  an 
art,  this  typographic  mystery,  which  awoke  and  went 
to  sleep  many  times  over  from  mere  defect  of  materials. 
Not  the  defect  of  typography  as  an  art,  but  the  defect 
of  paper  as  a  material  for  keeping  this  art  in  motion. 
There  lies  the  reason,  as  Dr.  Whately  most  truly  observes, 
why  printed  books  had  no  existence  amongst  the  Greeks 
of  Pericles  or  afterward  amongst  the  Romans  of  Cicero. 
And  why  was  there  no  paper?  The  common  reason, 
applying  to  both  countries,  was  the  want  of  linen  rags, 
and  that  want  arose  from  the  universal  habit  of  wearing 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  239 

woolen  garments.  .  .  .  How  desperate,"  he  continues, 
"must  have  been  the  bankruptcy  at  Athens  in  all  mate- 
rials for  receiving  the  records  of  thoughts  when  we  find  a 
polished  people  having  no  better  tickets  or  cards  for  con- 
veying their  sentiments  to  the  public  than  shells."  Hence, 
as  we  know,  came  our  word  ostracize,  from  the  practice 
of  marking  upon  shells  (ostraca)  the  votes  for  civil 
banishment.  A  similar  poverty  of  material  was  shown 
by  the  Romans,  according  to  Forsyth,  in  their  use  of 
"tickets  of  admission  to  the  gladiatorial  shows  just  like 
tickets  of  admission  to  our  own  theatres,"  except  that 
they  were  made  of  little  oblong  pieces  of  lead,  some  of 
which  have  come  down  to  us  and  are  now  in  the  British 
Museum. 

We  find,  in  fact,  that  printing  came  very  soon  after 
paper  had  come  into  general  use  among  the  European 
nations;  and  the  cheapening  and  increase  of  reading- 
matter  through  the  two  discoveries  have  been  very  great 
indeed.  In  consequence,  as  we  have  seen,  reading  and 
the  reading  habit  have  become  practically  universal, 
in  all  civilized  countries.  In  later  chapters  we  shall 
have  to  consider  certain  disquieting  results  that  come 
from  this  tremendous  modern  development  of  reading. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   HISTORY   OF   READING   METHODS   AND  TEXTS 

f 

WITH  the  development  of  syllabaries  and  alphabets 
came  reading  in  the  modern  sense,  and  also  methods 
of  learning  to  read.  Among  the  early  peoples  who 
used  an  alphabet  each  letter  was  used  for  a  definite  pur- 
pose to  represent  a  definite  sound,  and  this  made  the 
letters  of  much  greater  importance  than  at  present,  and 
tended  to  the  practice  of  reading  and  learning  to  read 
by  letters.  The  ABC  method  of  learning  to  read  became 
general  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  persisted 
to  recent  times  in  the  Western  world,  though  here  and 
there  an  ineffective  protest  was  made  by  educational 
reformers.  It  was  different  in  some  parts,  at  least,  of 
the  Orient,  where  the  method  of  teaching  to  read  was 
to  place  a  book  in  the  hands  of  the  child  from  which  he 
repeated  the  words  in  concert  with  his  comrades  until 
he  knew  them  by  heart,  learning  by  imitation,  in  word 
and  sentence  wholes.  Renan,  in  his  "Life  of  Jesus," 
thinks  that  Jesus  was  thus  taught  to  read. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans,  in  teaching  the  child  his 
letters,  taught  the  combination  of  letters  into  syllables 
and  words,  and  then  of  words  into  sentences.  Various 

240 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  241 

devices  were  used,  at  times,  for  getting  the  pupil  over 
the  difficult  alphabet  stage.  In  one  case  a  Greek  pur- 
chased twenty-four  slaves  as  playmates  for  his  stupid 
boy,  giving  to  each  the  name  of  a  letter  in  the  Greek 
alphabet.  Quintilian,  A.D.  68,  advised  giving  the  young 
child  blocks  and  tablets  containing  the  letters,  to  play 
with,  and  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  trace  with  a  pen 
the  forms  of  the  letters  as  engraved  on  ivory  tablets. 
And  so  there  were  innumerable  devices  for  teaching  the 
alphabet.  A  popular  method  of  a  later  century  was 
the  gingerbread  method,  described  as  follows  by  Mat- 
thew Prior:1  — 

"To  Master  John  the  English  maid 
A  horn  book  gives  of  gingerbread, 
And  that  the  child  may  learn  the  better, 
As  he  can  name  he  eats  the  letter. 
Proceeding  thus  with  vast  delight 
He  spells  and  gnaws  from  left  to  right." 

Basedow  (1723-1790),  who  taught  that  the  child 
should  learn  to  read  by  playing,  strongly  advocated  this 
gingerbread  method.  The  school  should  have  a  special 
school  baker.  "The  children  must  have  breakfast, 
and  it  is  not  necessary  for  any  child  to  eat  the  alphabet 
more  than  three  weeks.  The  cost  of  shaping  the  dough 
into  letters  is  less  than  one-half  penny  daily  for  each 

'"Alma,"  Canto  two,  quoted  from  Reader's  "Development  of 
School-Readers. " 


242  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

child.  This  makes  three  pence  a  week  or  for  four  weeks 
a  groschen.  The  acquisition  is  entirely  worth  so  much 
and  is  possible  even  to  the  poor  children."  1 

Various  mechanical  devices  were  contrived  to  facili- 
tate the  manipulation  of  letters  in  script  and  print,  in 
grouping  them  into  syllables,  words,  and  other  com- 
binations. Other  devices  were  primarily  to  interest 
the  child  in  the  letters.  The  development  of  methods 
proper  will  be  traced  further  after  we  have  given  an 
account  of  the  development  of  primers  and  reading 
texts. 

The  early  primers  were  all  books  of  religious  instruc- 
tion, and  their  content  was  determined  and  limited  by 
the  authority  of  the  Church.  In  the  Abecedarien  of 
the  ninth  century  the  alphabet  and  ab,  eb,  ib  columns 
were  followed  by  the  Credo  and  Paternoster;  later  the 
Ave  Maria  and,  soon  after  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
Benedicite  and  Gratias  were  included. 

From  Charles  the  Great  until  Luther,  no  other  material 
than  the  above  appeared  in  school  readers.  The  early 
primers  of  the  Reformation  were  not  only  school  books 
but  manuals  of  church  service.  The  German  word 
for  primer,  Fibel,  appeared  in  1419,  and  signifies  a  little 
Bible.  Henry  the  Eighth  forbade  the  printing  of  un- 
authorized primers  while  a  Catholic,  and  issued  his 
tj Reform  Primers"  in  the  interest  of  the  true  doctrine 

1  Kehr's  "  Geschichte  des  Leseunterrichts, "  p.  59. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  243 

when  he  became  a  Protestant.  "Alphabet  and  creed 
became  united  in  one  book  which  became  the  forerunner 
on  the  one  hand  of  the  book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  on 
the  other  of  the  modern  school  primer."  1 

The  first  Protestant  primer,  however,  by  Philip  Me- 
lancthon,  had  no  inconsiderable  quantity  of  secular 
material.  In  addition  to  the  usual  Catholic  content 
and  some  extracts  from  the  New  Testament,  there  were 
fourteen  pages  of  the  sayings  of  the  wise  men  of  Greece. 
Luther's  primer  followed  the  fashion  of  the  Catholic 
primers  of  the  time.  The  ABC  book  by  Schulte,  pub- 
lished in  1532,  made  one  of  the  earliest  attempts  to  adapt 
to  the  child's  interests.  The  letters  were  presented  with 
pictures  and  in  rhymes,  introducing  the  jingle  in  which 
the  child  soul  revels.  A  form,  that  was  much  followed 
in  the  early  English  primers,  ran  as  follows:  — 

"H  h  Hase  H  h  Hammer. 

Gebratne  Hasen  sind  nicht  boes. 
Der  Hammer  gibt  Gar  harte  stoess. 

K  k  Katze.  K  k  Kamm. 

Die  Schlaue  Katze  frisst  die  Maeus. 
Der  Kamm  herunter  dringt  die  Laues."  J 

The  Puritans  brought  with  them  to  America  an  A  B  C 
Catechism  which  was  succeeded  by  the  famous  New 
England  Primer,  about  1690.  "For  more  than  one 

1  Reeder,  "  Development  of  School  Readers,"  p,  10, 
*  Ibid.,  p.  12. 


244  THE  HISTORY   OF   READING 

hundred  years,"  says  Reeder,  "the  New  England  Primel 
had  the  field  in  America  against  all  comers,  and  for  half 
a  century  longer  it  continued  to  be  used  in  the  schools." 
Its  total  sales  are  estimated  to  have  been  not  less  than 
three  million  copies.  This  primer  was  a  Church  book, 
but  had  enough  of  secular  matter  to  make  it  "a  step  in 
the  direction  of  a  secularization  of  the  course  of  study." 
It  contained  the  alphabet,  lists  of  the  vowels  and  con- 
sonants, lists  of  syllables  such  as  ab,  eb,  ib,  etc.,  lists 
of  words  for  spelling  arranged  according  to  the  number 
of  syllables;  rhymes  with  illustrative  wood-cuts  for  the 
letters  in  order,  as  in  the  cut ;  moral  injunctions,  prayers, 
catechisms,  etc./  for  the  children,  including  the  "Now 
I  lay  me  down  to  sleep,"  which  was  apparently  written 
for  this  primer  and  which  has  come  to  be  "the  dearest 
prayer  of  American  childhood."  This  little  book,  pres- 
ent with  the  Bible  in  every  home,  had  a  profound  in- 
fluence on  the  moral  and  religious  thought  of  the  whole 
country.  It  is  said  to  have  been  "the  daily  companion 
of  President  John  Adams  throughout  his  long  career." 
When  it  went  down,  after  more  than  a  century  of  un- 
disputed sway,  it  continued  to  exert  "an  abiding  influence 
upon  the  quality  of  its  numerous  successors." 

Beginning  as  early  as  1450,  the  Horn  Book,  as  it  was 
called,  came  to  be  more  and  more  the  means  by  which 
the  English  child  learned  his  first  use  of  letters  and  words. 
It  was  used  extensively  in  England  down  to  the  beginning 


THE   HISTORY    OF    READING 


245 


246 


THE   HISTORY    OF    READING 


of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  in  our  schools  as  well. 
The    cut    below,   from    Johnson's    "Old-Time   Schools 


|+Aibcdef|h5jklmoop" 
[rfituvwxyz&  teioi 
|ABCDEFGHUKLMNOP< 

[RSTUVWXYZ 

a  e  I  o  u          a  e  i  o  u 
tab  eb  ih  ob  ub    ba  be  bi  bo 

jac  ec  ic  oc  uc  ca  ce  ci  co  cuj 
I  ad  ed  i  J  od  uc)  da  de  di  do  dtf] 
in  the  Kamcof  tie  Father  and  of  thel 
;5on,and  of  tlie  Hoi)  Ohoft.  Amm. 
UR  Father,\vhichartl^ 
Heaven.hallowed  be  thy] 
a  thy  Kingdom  come.thy  | 
rWillbe  Jor.eonEarth.asitisii 

Ptily $read ;  and  forgive  u»ou  r  ^ 

"Trefpaile^&s  we  forgive  them 

thattrefpaftagaiuftus:  And 

lead  ot  not  intoTemptatbn,but 

:jitiver  01  from  Evil.    ' 


FIG.  43.  —  A  Typical  Horn  Book. 

and  School  Books, "  shows  all  that  there  was  of  it.  It 
was  a  paddle,  with  a  card  of  printed  matter  tacked  upon 
it  under  a  protecting  sheet  of  horn. 


THE    HISTORY    OF    READING  247 

In  England  the  Battledore  paddles  came  to  be  trans- 
formed into  wooden  primers  in  a  similar  manner,  and 
were  used  both  for  play  and  for  lessons.  In  America 
the  little  girls  of  colonial  times  very  often  wrought  out 
their  own  primers  with  needle  and  thread,  in  samplers 


^^*A^^-Av^g^^ 

fcof  rnine  cati  tdi  .; 


arafitl  H  was  i& 
to  fpend  mx  tl-me  in 


FIG.  44. — A  Sampler.     (From  Johnson.) 

containing  the  alphabet  with  vowels  and  consonants, 
bible  quotations,  prayers,  verses,  and  sometimes  illustra- 
tions, in  various  designs  and  styles  of  type. 

As  the  New  England  Primer  declined  in  America,  the 
spelling-book  took  its  place  as  the  book  for  beginners. 
The  spelling-book  combined  the  alphabet,  primer,  speller, 


248  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

and  reader  in  one  book,  and  often  included  other  subjects 
as  well.  Webster's  Spelling  Book,  published  in  1783, 
soon  displaced  the  few  spellers  previously  introduced, 
and  came  to  be  used  almost  universally  throughout  the 
country.  In  1785  five  hundred  copies  a  week  were  being 
sold,  in  1818  the  total  number  had  reached  five  million, 
and  to  1847  the  total  sales  had  amounted  to  forty-seven 
million.  In  1889  Commissioner  Harris  stated  that 
twelve  hundred  thousand  copies  were  then  being  sold 
annually,  and  that  it  was  "the  most  generally  used  of  all 
school  text-books."  In  1900  it  was  still  being  sold  at 
tne  rate  of  hundreds  of  thousands  annually. 

The  book  contained  long  lists  of  words  arranged  according 
to  length,  a  large  number  of  names  of  persons  and  places, 
illustrated  fables  for  reading  lessons,  and  short  sentences 
for  beginners  in  reading.  Supplementary  matter,  such 
as  numbers,  abbreviations,  moral  instructions,  a  cate- 
chism, etc.,  appeared  variously  in  various  editions.  Arti- 
ficial in  its  arrangement  of  words,  thought,  and  vocabu- 
lary, most  ill-adapted  to  the  needs  of  its  users  and  to  the 
various  ages  of  children,  it  yet  served  an  important  pur- 
pose in  its  earlier  days,  and  through  its  universal  use, 
in  "reducing  a  dozen  local  dialects  to  one  harmonious 
language,"  and  bringing  about  "that  remarkable  uni- 
formity of  pronunciation  in  our  country  which  is  so 
often  spoken  of  with  surprise  by  English  travellers."  * 

1  Scudder,  "Life  of  Noah  Webster,"  pp.  38-39,  quoted  by  Reeder. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  249 

The  list  of  geographical  names  below,  quoted  by 
Reeder  from  Webster's  Spelling  Book,  illustrates  the 
choice  of  words,  arrangement,  etc. : — 

A  bac'  o  Cat  a  ra'  qua        Schuy'  ler          Wa  que  fa  no'  ga 

A  bit'  i  bis          Cat  te  hunk'          Scoo'  due  Win'  ni  pic 

A  ca'  di  a  Chab  a  quid'  ic     Shen'  brun         Win  ni  pis  o'  gy 

A  quac'  nac        Chat  a  ho'  chy      Sho'  dack  Wy  a  lu'  sing 

FIG.  44'/2.  — An  Old  Spelling  Lesson. 

Webster  seems  to  have  published  the  first  American 
school  reader,  about  the  same  time  as  his  speller.  Be- 
sides selections  intended  directly  to  instruct  the  youth 
in  morals  and  religion,  it  contained  dialogues,  narratives, 
and  many  selections  from  American  statesmen  and 
patriots  of  those  revolutionary  times.  Webster's  reader 
was  not  so  successful  as  his  speller.  Several  rival 
readers,  made  on  somewhat  the  same  plan,  divided  the 
field  with  him.  The  preference  of  their  makers  for  the 
productions  of  American  genius  "  resulted  in  the  selection 
of  much  that  was  commonplace  and  the  omission  of 
most  that  was  really  great." 

Primers  of  various  sorts  seem  to  have  abounded  during 
the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  they  took 
little  account  of  method  in  teaching  beginners  to  read. 
If  they  contained  anything  beyond  the  illustrated  alpha- 
bet, it  was  the  catechism  or  other  moral  or  religious  con- 
tent. But  by  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  century, 
primer-makers  began  to  attend  to  method  and  adapta- 
tion as  well  as  to  matter.  For  example,  Keagy's  Pes- 


250  THE    HISTORY   OF   READING 

talozzian  primer,  of  1826,  contained  a  series  of  "thinking 
lessons,"  a  beginning  of  object-lessons.  "The  size, 
shape,  color,  number,  origin,  and  use  of  common  articles 
of  the  household,  the  street,  and  the  field  were  to  become 
rallying  points  for  pleasing  and  useful  thoughts.  Ex- 
ercising the  pupils  in  handling  the  objects  was  recom- 
mended wherever  practicable.  It  was  probably  the 
first  primer  published  in  this  country  in  which  there 
was  a  distinct  purpose  to  make  use  of  the  child's  en- 
vironment in  an  educative  manner."1  The  plan  and 
arrangement,  however,  were  exceedingly  crude. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  readers  began  to 
be  graded  somewhat  as  to  subject-matter,  appearing 
in  series  of  two  and  three  books  each.  There  would 
be  an  Introduction,  a  Middle  Book,  and  a  Sequel,  a 
Primer  and  a  Spelling  Book  completing  the  series. 

In  1828  Putnam's  series  introduced  a  custom  that 
has  been  much  imitated,  that  of  doing  the  work  of  a  dic- 
tionary in  defining  the  difficult  words  and  phrases.  Wor- 
cester's series  of  readers,  published  in  1828,  contained 
a  primer  which  seems  to  have  been  "the  first  American 
primer  to  advocate  the  word-method."  Of  this  more 
further  on.  Pierpont's  series  of  readers,  beginning  about 
1823,  omitted  the  usual  treatises  on  inflection,  emphasis, 
accent,  punctuation,  etc.,  as  being  little  used,  insisting 
that  "reading,  like  conversation,  is  learned  from  example 

1  Reeder,  p.  43. 


THE    HISTORY    OF    READING  25! 

rather  than  by  rule."  The  selections  were  taken  mainly 
from  the  writings  of  Jefferson,  Patrick  Henry,  Webster, 
Irving,  etc.,  in  the  belief  that  our  country  had  a  "char- 
acter of  its  own,"  physically  and  morally,  which  should 
be  learned  by  the  children  while  at  school.  The  series 
was  long  a  popular  one,  and  on  its  merits,  with  little 
pushing  by  publisher  or  author,  and  set  an  excellent 
example  in  its  choice  of  "literature  as  the  proper  field 
for  subject-matter." 

The  chief  competitors  of  Webster's  first  American 
Reader  had  been  Bingham's  "  Columbian  Orator, "  Bing- 
ham's  "American  Preceptor,"  and  the  "English  Reader" 
by  Lindley  Murray,  an  English  author,  with  the  Introduc- 
tion and  Sequel  to  the  "  English  Reader."  The  "  English 
Reader"  continued  to  be  very  largely  used  in  American 
schools  during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
In  literary  worth  it  much  surpassed  its  early  American 
rivals.  It  had  many  selections  from  the  best  English 
poets,  but  still  more  of  moral  and  didactic  matter,  prov- 
erbs, Bible  stories,  dissertations  on  Virtue,  Friendship, 
Comforts  of  Religion,  etc.,  pathetic  pieces,  public  speeches, 
etc.,  with  little  adaptation  to  the  needs  of  the  young. 

A  series  of  readers  by  Cobb,  begun  about  1831,  made 
some  effort  to  interest  the  child  by  means  of  stories,  in- 
formation about  animals,  etc.,  and  the  author  made  a 
strong  appeal  to  American  patriotism  in  support  of  his 
readers  as  against  the  "English  Reader,"  then  so  generally 


252  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

used.  By  1844  more  than  six  million  copies  of  Cobb's 
Readers  had  been  sold. 

First  Readers  gradually  took  the  place  of  spellers  as 
introductory  to  reading,  though  the  spellers  remained  in 
constant  use.  The  readers  came  to  give  much  instruction 
in  correct  articulation  and  in  elocution  generally.  The  vari- 
ous series  that  appeared  each  embodied  some  characteristic 
feature  which  publishers  made  the  most  of,  as  nowadays. 

McGuffey's  six-book  series,  which  appeared  in  1850, 
has,  according  to  Reeder,  "probably  attained  the  largest 
sale  and  widest  distribution  of  any  series  yet  produced  in 
America.  In  range  of  subject-matter  it  swept  almost  the 
entire  field  of  human  interest,  morals,  economics,  politics, 
literature,  history,  science,  and  philosophy.  Many  a 
profound  and  lasting  impression  was  made  upon  the  lives 
of  children  and  youths  by  the  well-chosen  selections  of 
this  series,  and  valuable  lessons  of  industry,  thrift,  econ- 
omy, kindness,  generosity,  honesty,  courage,  and  duty 
found  expressions  in  the  after  lives  of  millions  of  boys 
and  girls  who  read  and  re-read  these  books,  to  the  in- 
fluence of  which  such  lessons  were  directly  traceable." 

From  1860  to  1880  the  character  of  school  readers  seems 
to  have  undergone  little  change,  but  changes  in  method 
were  taking  place.  The  word-method  had  again  been 
advocated  in  the  Bumstead  Readers  of  1843,  and  ap- 
peared again  in  1860  as  "new  and  original"  in  the  "Word 
Builder,"  the  first  book  of  the  National  Series  of  readers. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  253 

Reading  books  had  been  taken  into  the  service  of  the 
school  subjects  as  early  as  1824,  in  the  "Agricultural 
Reader"  by  Daniel  Adams.  In  1827  appeared  a  "His- 
torical Reader,"  by  Rev.  J.  L.  Blake,  and  reading  was 
later  taken  into  the  service  of  the  various  sciences,  nota- 
bly in  the  Willson  seven-book  series  of  1860.  The  latter 
seems  to  have  marked  the  culmination  of  the  tendency  to 
utilitarian  specialization  in  the  choice  of  subject-matter 
for  readers,  as  against  the  literary  excellence  shown  hi 
such  readers  as  Pierpont's  and  in  Murray's  "English 
Reader."  "In  the  new  series  and  supplementary  readers, 
which  began  to  appear  about  1880,  literature  took  the  field 
and  since  then  has  held  it  against  all  comers."  It  was  the 
beginning  of  a  new  epoch  in  the  development  of  school 
readers.1  Science  and  the  other  departments  of  knowl- 
edge, while  rather  losing  their  place  in  the  reading-books, 
have  been  given  their  own  place  in  the  present  enriched 
elementary  curriculum.  Since  1880  the  subject-matter  of 
readers  has  been  taken  mainly  from  ,the  field  of  literature, 
and  the  problem  has  been  one  of  selection,  arrangement, 
and  adaptation  within  this  field,  the  tendency  being  toward 
the  use  of  literary  wholes  instead  of  the  earlier  selection 
of  scraps.  The  scrap  compilations  of  the  school  readers 
were  scathingly  denounced  by  Horace  Mann  as  early  as 
1849,  but  with  little  effect.  President  Eliot  forcibly  re- 
newed the  criticism  in  his  article  in  the  Educational  Review 
1  Reeder,  "Development  of  School  Readers,"  p.  56. 


254  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

of  July,  1891,  arguing  for  the  use  of  real  literature  and 
literary  wholes  in  the  readers  as  against  the  literary  scraps 
and  trash  of  most  of  the  books.  With  the  appearance  of 
the  supplementary  readers,  about  1880,  came  a  tendency 
more  and  more  to  present  literary  wholes,  condensations  of 
such  classics  as  "Hiawatha,"  " Robinson  Crusoe,"  "Ivan- 
hoe,"  etc.  Most  of  the  present-day  series  of  readers  are 
based  on  literature  as  the  subject-matter,  and  the  "Heart 
of  Oak"  series,  a  six-book  series  edited  by  Charles  Eliot 
Norton,  perhaps  marks  the  extreme  of  this  tendency  to 
"read  for  literature's  sake,"  as  contrasted  with  the  other 
extreme  represented  in  the  Willson  books. 

After  this  review  of  the  contents  of  school  readers,  let  us 
now  return  to  the  history  of  methods  of  learning  to  read. 
The  alphabet  method,  in  spite  of  occasional  protest,  was 
almost  universally  used  from  the  Greek  and  Roman 
times  until  some  thirty  years  ago,  and  of  course  has  not 
been  entirely  discarded  even  yet.  In  this  method  the 
child  learned  first  the  names  of  the  large  and  small  letters, 
and  their  order  in  the  alphabet.  This  was  task  enough, 
uninteresting  as  it  was  to  many,  to  keep  them  employed 
for  some  months,  or  even  in  some  cases  for  a  year  or  more 
Then  the  combinations  like  ab,  eb,  ib,  were  spelled  out  and 
pronounced,  and  then  three-letter  combinations  like  glo, 
flo,  pag,  etc.,  in  all  of  which  the  early  pages  of  the  old 
spellers  abounded.  Then  monosyllables  and  gradually 
longer  and  longer  words  were  used.  Spelling  the  word 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  255 

preceded  its  pronunciation,  until  it  was  known  well. 
."It  was  assumed  that  there  was  a  necessary  connection 
between  naming  the  letters  of  a  word  and  pronouncing 
the  word."  "No  other  approach  to  the  pronunciation  of 
the  printed  symbol  was  imagined  by  the  great  majority 
of  teachers."  1 

The  alphabet  method  had  early  modifications  in  Europe 
on  the  side  of  phonetics.  As  early  as  1534  Ickelsamer 
had  a  device  of  "placing  the  picture  of  an  animal,  its 
printed  name,  and  the  letter  whose  sound  was  most  like 
the  animal's  voice  or  cry  in  parallel  columns.  Against 
the  picture  of  a  dog,  for  example,  was  placed  the  growling 
r,  against  a  bird  the  twittering  z,"  etc.2  Later,  A  was 
associated  with  Apple,  B  with  Boy,  etc.,  and  in  this  cen- 
tury we  have  seen  various  imitative  picturings  of  the 
sounds  of  the  letters,  as  of  m  by  a  cow  lowing,  sch  by 
children  driving  away  hens,  etc. 

The  philanthropinists,  in  Germany,  had  their  boys 
personate  the  letters  by  their  dress  and  actions;  for  ex- 
ample, /  by  "dressing  in  helmet,  big  necktie,  and  stilts," 
w  by  twisting  their  bodies  into  its  shape,  etc.  Such 
methods  had,  as  one  of  their  results,  the  lessening  of  at- 
tention to  the  letter's  name,  in  favor  of  its  sound  or  visual 
form.  Germany  much  earlier  than  America  began  to 
realize  that  spelling  was  not  the  only  or  the  best  approach 

1  Reader,  "  Development  oi  School  Readers,"  p.  63. 

2  Hall,  "How  to  Teach  Reading,"  p.  2. 


256 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 


to  reading,  but  the  spelling  method  held  its  ground  there 
until  well  into  the  nineteenth  century. 

Outside  of  the  illustrations  of  the  alphabet  which  we 
have  noticed,  the  first  illustrated  schoolbook  seems  to 
have  been  Comenius'  "Visible  World,  or  a  Nomen- 
clature, and  pictures  of  all  the  chief  things  that  are  in  the 
world,  and  of  men's  employments  therein;  hi  above  an 
150  Copper  Cuts."  This  book,  the  "Orbis  Pictus" 


Infant  ejular,      etl 
The  Infant  crietb. 


Ventus  flat, 

The  Wind  blovetb. 


gngrt,    gaga 
The  Goofe  gagletb. 

Oxhalar,         Wbbdb 


Ee 
Ff 

Gg 


Hh 


FIG.  45.  —  Part  of  an  Illustrated  Alphabet  in  the  "Visible  World." 
(From  Johnson.) 

as  it  is  usually  known,  published  in  Nuremberg  in  1657 
or  1658,  was  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  the  most 
popular  text-book  in  Europe.  Reeder  calls  it  "the  first 
attempt  at  object-lesson  instruction,  and  the  beginning  of 
the  word-method  in  teaching  reading.  It  was  translated 
into  ten  European  and  four  Asiatic  languages"  (p.  67). 
In  the  "Orbis  Pictus"  each  subject  had  its  picture, 
with  explanatory  sentences  below  in  Latin  and  hi  English 


257 


The  Barbers  Shop.  LXXV.       Tonftrina. 


Tfa  Barber,  r. 
fn  the  Barbers-fhop,  2. 
cutteth  off  the  Hair 
and  the  Beard 
withapairofSi-zzus,  3. 
or  fluneth  with  a  Razor, 
which  be  tabeth  out  of  hit 
Cafe,  4. 

And  he  waflxth  one 
ww<tBafon,  5. 
with  Suds  running 
tut  of  A  Laver,  6. 
andalfo  with  Sppe,  7. 
andwipeth  him 
jwf&d  Towel,  8. 
combeth  him  with  A  Comb,  p. 
<rm/  curleth  him 
with  A  Crifping  Iron,  10. 

Sometimes  he  cutteth  a  Vein 
wit h  A  Pen-knife,  ix. 
where  theBlwdfiirtefb  <mfti^ 


Ton/or,  I. 
in  Tonjlrina,  a« 
tondec  Crines 
&  Bar  bam 
Forcipe,  3. 
vel  radit  NovacuM, 
quam  e  Theca,  4.  depromit, 

Et  lavat 


Lixmio  defluente 
eGutturnio,  6. 
ut  &  ^/:pow,  7. 
&  tergit 
£/n?eo,  8. 
peftic  Pe8inet  9. 
crifpac 
CalantiflrO)  10. 

Interdum  Venam  fecar 
gcalpettOy  ix. 
ubiSanguispropniliuIat,  12. 


fie.  46.  —  A  Page  showing  the  Method  of  Teaching  in  the 
(From  Johnson.) 


'Visible  World/ 


258  THE  HISTORY  OF  READING 

or  other  language.  In  his  preface  Comenius  says : 
"The  very  looking  upon  the  thing  pictured  suggesting  the 
name  of  the  thing  will  tell  the  child  how  the  title  of  the 
picture  is  to  be  read.  And  thus  the  whole  book  being 
gone  over  by  the  bare  titles  of  the  pictures,  reading  cannot 
but  be  learned  —  and  indeed,  too,  without  using  any 
ordinary  tedious  spelling  —  that  most  troublesome  torture 
of  wits."  However,  Comenius  was  far  beyond  his  times, 
and  his  book  was  little  used  as  such  a  method  of  learning 
to  read. 

There  were  glimpses  of  better  things  in  the  phonetic 
system  of  the  Jansenists,  and  in  the  primer  of  Gedike,  in 
1791,  which  advised  teaching  words  before  letters,  as  the 
natural  order  is  from  the  whole  to  the  parts ;  but  none  of 
these  had  appreciable  effect  in  changing  current  ABC 
practice  until  Jacotot  (1770-1840)  advocated  the  word- 
method  as  a  part  of  his  system,  and  set  forth  clearly  the 
arguments  for  it. 

In  America,  Worcester's  Primer,  hi  1828,  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  beginners'  book  to  recognize  any  other 
than  the  alphabet  method.  The  author  says  in  his  preface : 
"It  is  not,  perhaps,  very  important  that  a  child  should 
know  the  letters  before  it  begins  to  read.  It  may  learn 
first  to  read  words  by  seeing  them,  hearing  them  pro- 
nounced, and  having  their  meanings  illustrated;  and 
afterward  it  may  learn  to  analyze  them  or  name  the  letters 
of  which  they  are  composed."  Bumstead,  in  the  first 


THE  HISTORY  OF  READING  259 

book  of  his  series  of  readers  published  in  1840-1843,  stood 
stoutly  for  the  word-method,  and  urged  that  a  scholar  be 
never  required  to  spell  a  word  "before  he  has  so  far 
learned  it  as  to  be  able  to  read  it."  Horace  Mann  had 
already  advocated  the  word-method  for  years,  and  ridi- 
culed the  en-o — no,  pee-you-tee — put,  tee-aitch-ee — the, 

way  of  beginning  reading,  as  it  was  taught  in  Webster's 
/ 

Spelling  Book.  As  early  as  1790  Dr.  Thornton,  head  of 
the  Patent  Office  in  Washington,  had  issued  a  pamphlet 
proposing  that  letters  be  named  as  they  sound;  and,  as 
there  are  more  sounds  than  letters,  he  introduced  new 
letters  to  supply  deficiencies,  making  a  phonetic  system 
such  as  we  have  seen  much  of  in  recent  years.  But 
the  ABC  method  and  the  reading  by  spelling  went 
on  with  little  disturbance  from  these  protests.  Reeder 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  even  in  advanced  reading 
"analysis  played  the  leading  r61e"  (p.  78).  Pupils  would 
"spell  and  define  the  words,  tell  their  synonyms  and  op- 
posites,  write  and  paraphrase  the  sentence  or  paragraph, 
analyze  and  reduce  it  to  its  simplest  sentences,"  etc., 
sometimes  spending  twenty  to  thirty  minutes  on  six  or 
eight  lines. 

J.  Russell  Webb,  author  of  the  Normal  Readers,  did 
much  to  bring  about  the  adoption  of  the  word-method, 
and  by  1870  it  began  to  be  adopted  by  progressive  teachers 
in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and  gradually  grew  in 
favor. 


260  THE   HISTORY   OF   READING 

The  phonic  method,  so  early  used  by  the  Jansenists, 
helped  also  to  displace  the  alphabet  method.  In  the 
phonic  method,  the  words  are  spelled  by  producing  the 
succession  of  sounds  forming  them.  As  there  are  some 
forty-four  sounds,  new  characters  must  be  added  to  the 
usual  twenty-six  if  the  system  is  to  be  complete.  If 
the  child  is  able  to  successively  reproduce  the  sounds  of 
the  letters  as  they  stand  in  a  word,  he  can  learn  for  him- 
self to  pronounce  new  words  as  they  appear,  a  great  ad- 
vantage of  the  phonic  method  over  the  word  method.  As 
for  the  alphabet  method,  it  was  easy  to  show  that  knowing 
or  saying  the  letters'  names  gave  no  clew,  necessarily,  to 
a  new  word's  sound.  The  phonic  method  was  tried  in 
various  parts  of  the  country,  and  met  with  great  success 
for  a  time,  developing  into  what  came  to  be  known 
as  the  phonetic  method,  notably  in  the  "Pronouncing 
Orthography"  system  of  Dr.  Edwin  Leigh,  published  in 
1864  and  patented  four  years  later.  In  this  system  the 
letters  were  given  various  special  forms  to  represent  their 
different  sounds,  these  forms  being  slight  modifications  of 
the  ordinary  form.  Silent  letters  were  printed,  but  in  hair 
lines.  The  method  is  further  described  and  illustrated  on  a 
later  page.1  This  system  was  used  in  a  series  of  readers  by 
Leigh,  and  in  several  other  series,  including  McGuffey's.  It 
was  introduced  into  the  schools  of  St.  Louis,  New  York, 
Washington,  Boston,  and  other  large  cities.  It  met  with 

1  See  Fig.  48. 


THE   HISTORY   OF   READING  261 

great  success,  but  only  for  a  short  time.  The  "pronounc- 
ing print"  was  hard  on  the  eyes,  requiring  an  unnaturally 
close  inspection  of  each  letter,  in  the  beginning ;  besides,  it 
made  trouble  for  the  printer,  distracted  from  attention  to 
the  thought  in  reading,  and  caused  confusion  in  the  at- 
tempt to  use  two  alphabets. 

The  sentence  method  was  more  or  less  used,  here  and 
there,  as  early  as  1870,  and  indeed  was  advocated  by  occa- 
sional writers  very  much  earlier,  as  we  have  noted.  It  was 
not  very  generally  used  until  as  late  as  1885  or  1890.  Since 
then  there  have  appeared  a  very  great  variety  of  modifica- 
tions and  mixtures  of  all  these  methods,  devices  for  mak- 
ing them  interesting  to  the  child,  arrangements  for  corre- 
lating the  beginnings  of  reading  with  writing,  drawing, 
number  work,  etc.  There  has  been  development  simul- 
taneously along  so  many  and  so  conflicting  lines  that 
historical  treatment  seems  impossible  in  any  brief  compass. 
I  shall,  however,  endeavor  to  briefly  describe  the  methods 
that  are  now  in  most  general  use  or  that  have  much  of 
promise  or  suggestion,  and  shall  note  the  present  trend 
of  practice  among  the  better  teachers  of  reading. 


PART   III 
THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 


CHAPTER   XIV 

PRESENT-DAY    METHODS    AND    TEXTS    IN    ELEMENTARY 
READING 

THE  methods  of  learning  to  read  that  are  in  common 
use  to-day  may  be  classed  as  alphabetic,  phonic,  phonetic, 
word,  sentence,  and  combination  methods.  The  special 
systems  of  teaching  to  read,  which  now  pass  under  the 
names  of  their  authors,  are  usually  but  specially  adapted 
means  of  using  one  or  another  of  these  standard  methods. 
A  brief  account  of  these  standards  will  therefore  pave  the 
way  for  an  account  of  the  concrete  systems  now  in  vogue. 

The  alphabet  method,  used  almost  universally  in 
Greece  and  Rome,  and  in  European  countries  generally 
until  well  into  the  nineteenth  century,  and  which  was  nearly 
universal  in  America  until  about  1870,  is  now  chiefly  of 
historical  interest.  However,  there  are  innumerable  cor- 
ners of  our  country,  a  little  removed  from  the  centers  and 
thoroughfares  of  civilization,  in  which  the  alphabet  method 
is  still  "the  good  old  way."  In  this  method,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  names  of  the  printed  or  written  letters  are  first 
taught,  and  the  order  of  the  letters  in  the  alphabet.  Some- 
times the  sounds  of  the  letters  are  also  taught.  Then 
nonsense  syllables  like  ab,  ib,  ob  are  spelled  and  pro- 

265 


266  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

nounced ;  then  combinations  of  three  letters,  monosyllabic 
words,  dissyllables,  etc.,  follow,  the  word  usually  being 
spelled  before  it  is  pronounced.  Just  how  naming  the 
letters  was  supposed  to  assist  in  pronouncing  the  word  it 
is  difficult  to  see.  The  value  of  the  practice  hi  learning 
to  spell  doubtless  had  much  to  do  with  blinding  centuries 
of  teachers  to  its  uselessness  for  the  reading  of  words 
and  sentences. 

However,  in  dealing  thus  constantly  with  the  letters 
and  their  combinations,  the  pupil  necessarily  acquired 
a  familiarity  with  the  sounds  represented  by  each  letter, 
whether  purposely  taught  these  or  not.  And  thus  this 
method  always  combined  something  of  phonics  as  well. 

The  phonic  method,  used  by  the  Jansenists  hi  the  Port 
Royal  Schools,  long  neglected  but  advocated  again  by 
Thornton  in  1790,  began,  as  we  have  seen,  to  be  exten- 
sively used  as  a  special  method  in  this  country  in  the 
system  of  Leigh,  about  1870-1873.  It  is  a  spelling  method, 
but  the  word  is  spelled  by  its  elementary  sounds  and  not 
by  the  letter-names.  The  word  is  slowly  pronounced 
until  its  constituent  sounds  come  to  consciousness,  and 
these  sounds  are  associated  with  the  letters  representing 
them.  Drill  in  this  sound  analysis  trains  the  articulation, 
trains  the  ear  and  the  ability  to  sound  the  letters  of  any 
new  word,  and  gives  the  power  to  pronounce  it  by  blending 
the  sounds  suggested,  —  provided  there  are  no  silent  let- 
ters and  provided  the  sounded  letters  represent  but  one 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  267 

sound.  This  seldom  occurs,  and  the  reader  of  new  words 
must  be  helped  out  by  context  or  conjecture.  Both 
Thornton  and  Leigh  met  the  difficulty  by  contriving  addi- 
tional characters  to  represent  the  other  sounds  after  one 

2  And  bo^h  Jesus  was  called,  and  his  disci'- 
pies,  te  th^  marriage. 

3  And  when  they  wanted  wine^  th.B  mother 
of  JBSUS  sarfli  unte  him,  Thay  have  no  wine. 

4  JBSUS  sedfh  unte  her,  Woman,  what  have 
I  te  de  with  th^e?  mine  hour  is  not  yet  CDme. 

5  His  mother  setrfli  unte  thB  servants,  What- 
soev'er  h^  saifh  unte  yon,  de  it. 

6  And  thare  were  set  tJiare  six  waterpots  of 
stone,   after  this  manner  of  th^  purifi^irjg  of 
•this  Jews,    contain  igg    twe   er  fhr^e   firkins 
apiece'. 

7  Jfesus    saifh    unte    them,  Till   thfc  water- 
pots  with  water.     And  they  filled  them  up  te 
th^  brim. 

8  And  hfc  saifh  unte   tiiem,-Draw  out  now, 
and    bear    unte    th^l    governor  of  tiiB  feast. 
And  they  bare  it. 

FIG.  47. — A  Specimen  of  Leigh's  Print. 

sound  each  had  been  allowed  to  the  twenty-six  regular 
letters.  The  forty-four  or  more  sounds  used  in  English 
needed  as  many  characters,  and  when  these  were  furnished 
the  method  came  to  be  known  as  the  phonetic,  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  simpler  phonic.  Leigh  made  the  addi- 


268  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

tional  characters  by  slightly  modifying  the  existing  letter- 
forms,  and  silent  letters  were  printed  in  hair  lines,  as  shown 
in  these  extracts  (Figs.  47  and  48)  from  his  article  in  the 
Report  of  the  National  Educational  Association,  1873. 

A  special  form  of  a  letter  is  used  for  each  sound  of  it.  The  hair-line 
letters  are  silent.  The  pronunciation  is  according  to  our-  standard  dic- 
tionaries, .Webster  and  Worcester^ 

The  8  pairs  of  vowels,  the  diphthongs,  and  the  semi- vowels  (w  y)  are- 

eel  ft,  ale  ell,  air  at,  art  ask ;  urn  up,  or  on,  old  foJks,  fool  toot.  ice  oil  our  sue,  use.  we-yo. 

e  i,  a  e,  a  a,  a  a ;  u  u,  e  o,  o  o,   e  o.  i.oi  ou  u,  H.  wj. 

The  aspirates,  liquids,  nasals,  and  the  8  pairs  of  consonants  are — 

AenwAen.  tork.   mining,  veil!/,  the  thin,  Is  us,  usual  she,  6eup,  do  to,  jet  cAln,  jrocat. 

h wii.  1  r.  nan g,  vf^th th, s s,  s ^b,  b p, d t,  j  ch,  g  c. 

To  preserve  the  spelling,  some  duplicate  forms  are  used.    Notice  their, 
correspondence  with  the  above  forms  for  the  same  sounds, 
poh'ce  been  women  busy,  they  any  bury,  there,  dove,   all  was  beau  sew,  rude  crew  put. 

i    B   i>  izij,  a  e,  ia,    a,  D,  act,  a\y,    u  w  u. 

my  boy  now  blew,  ewe.     Quit  one  union,    fur  cofcmel  r-r-roll.    cfl&ugh,     discern  si<» 

^  ag  ow  w;  w.    u  w  ID.     r    i*  F.        v  fi,      c    z 

ice  wait*.  a*ure  mre  action  ocean  c&alse,  hiccoii(?A,  Icerf,  jem,  WteotdtloujA  exist  oz? 

«  z,    s    sic    dh,      g,    ct,  g,    k  q  g,  x  x. 

The  old  capitals  are  used  like  their  small  letters;  the  forms  of  the  new 
ones  generally  correspond  with  the  small  letters  for  the  same  sounds.  A 
few  variations  were  found  necessary,  or  desirable,  but  none  of  them  are 
BO  great  as  some  in . the  common  alphabet ;  they  are — 

-4im          Any,  Air.  Am          Ak;1         Eight.       Ever?.        Gem. 

&a-     Ha,.     Aa,     &a     Ha;     £Q     Ee.     Gg, 

When  the  accent  does  not  fafl  on  the  6rst  syllable  it  is*  marked  ( ' ) 
FIG.  48.  —  Synopsis  of  Leigh's  System. 

The  "Scientific  Alphabet"  used  in  the  Standard  Dic- 
tionary and,  in  part,  in  the  Funk  and  Wagnalls  series  of 
readers,  is  a  modification  of  this  same  method,  the  silent 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  269 

letters  being  omitted.  This  is  illustrated  in  the  following 
extracts,1  the  first  being  from  Funk  and  Wagnalls'  "Stand- 
ard First  Reader,"  and  the  second  from  their  "Standard 
Second  Reader." 

Wims,  Rip  Van  Win'-kl  went  up 

a-mung'  the  hilz,  hwar  hi  #e 

ewir  lit'-l  men  pl£'-ing  bel. 
The  gev  Rip  sum- -thing  tu  drink, 

hwich  put  him  tu  slip. 
HI  slept  twen'-ti  yfrz,  and  hwen  hi  wok  up 

hi  W0z  an  Old  man  wi^h  gre  har  and  bird. 
Hi  went  horn.    No  wun  niu  him  at  fe.rst. 
HI  w0z  told  hwet  had  hap'-nd 

hwoil  hi  wez  a-slip'  a-mung'  the  hilz, 

FIG.  49.  —  Selection  printed  in  the  "  Scientific  Alphabet." 

Instead  of  making  new  characters  for  the  extra  sounds 
of  the  letters,  the  same  end  is  more  commonly  attained  by 
placing  a  diacritical  mark  over  the  letter  to  indicate,  in 
combination  with  the  letter-character  itself,  the  sound  in- 
tended.2 The  combined  mark  and  letter-character  really 
constitute  a  new  phonetic  character,  but  have  the  dis- 
advantage that  they  are  not  constantly  and  exclusively 
used  to  represent  this  single  sound.  Hence,  there  is 

J  These  extracts  are  reproduced  by  permission  of  Funk  and  Wagnalls 
Co.  »  See  Fig.  54. 


270          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

much  confusion  even  in  using  any  one  system,  and  there 
are  several  systems. 

A  system  proposed  by  Mr.  James  W.  Shearer  and  pub- 
lished in  his  "Combination  Speller,"  and  somewhat  im- 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  ALPHABET. 


LETTERS. 

NAMES 

AS  IN  — 

LETTERS. 

NAMI 

ZS.            AS  IN  — 

a,  a,  a 

(ah) 

ask,  star 

O,  o,  6 

(oh) 

obey,  no,  boat 

A,  a,  a 

(ai(r)) 

fan,  fare 

0,0,3 

(awe) 

not,  nor 

B,  b 

(bee) 

bat 

P,P 

(pee) 

pet 

C,c  =  k,q 

(kee) 

cat 

[Q,q]=c 

(cue) 

(quit)  cwit 

Ch,  ch 

(chee) 

church 

R,r 

(ar) 

rat 

D,d 

(dee) 

did 

S,  s 

(ess) 

so 

Dh,  dh 

(thee) 

then 

Sh,  sh 

(ish) 

she 

E,  e,  6 

(ay) 

met,  they 

T,  t 

(tee) 

tell 

F,f 

(eft) 

fit 

Th,  th 

(ilh) 

thin 

G,g 

(ghee) 

g° 

U,  u,u 

(oo) 

full,  rule 

H,  h 

(hee) 

he 

U,  u,  u 

(u(r)) 

but,  bum 

I,  i,l 

(ee) 

it,  caprice 

V,v 

(vee) 

vat 

7.-J 

(jay) 

jet 

W,  w 

(woo) 

wo 

[K,  k]  =  c 

(hay) 

kin 

[X,x]  =  cs 

(ex) 

wax 

L,l 

(el) 

lo,  noble 

Y,y 

(yee) 

ye 

M,  m 

(em) 

me 

Z,  z 

(zee) 

zone 

N,  n 

(en) 

no 

Zh,  zh 

(zhee) 

azure 

Ng,  ng 

(ing) 

king 

Diphthongs:    ai,  aisle,  I;    au,  staut  (stout);    ai,  cain  (coin);    iu, 
fiud  (feud),  miuzic  (music)." 

FIG.  49%.  —  (See  also  Appendix  of  Standard  Dictionary.) 

proved,  indeed,  in  an  unpublished  manuscript  recently  sent 
me  by  Mr.  Shearer,  has  the  great  advantage  of  representing 
the  letter's  sound,  where  it  might  be  equivocal,  by  a  mark 
which  constantly  stands  for  that  sound  arid  for  it  only, 
irrespective  of  what  the  letter  may  be.  Comparatively 
few  marks  are  thus  needed,  and  the  constant  value  of  the 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 


271 


marks  gives  an  easy  guide  to  pronunciation  and  lessens 
the  confusion.  The  silent  letters  are  indicated  by  a  dot. 
The  system  is  illustrated  in  the  extracts  below:  — 

I.    ALPHABETIC  NAMES,  SOUNDS  AND  SYMBOLS. 

KEY  TO  CONSONANT  AND  VOWRL'  SOUNDS. 


1  t)  .                               \ 

*  pet,  top. 

'sh,  gh,  s,  )  as    show,  chaj^e,  sure. 
•  9>  t,         1"     ippreciatf  ,  ietifin. 

it                    * 

ten',  net 

§>  5»  S* 

1     \isi6n,  ijure,  r6gge.; 

id, 

den,  end. 

(x, 

'•   ix,  b6x. 

J<Jh, 

dhess,  Whidh. 

1?» 

1    eximple.. 

ii'fc 

jet,  gtov 

Whf 

'    wten,  Whit 

]k,e,q, 
It 

kit,  eit,  piqu§. 
,gun,peg. 

w, 
h, 

wen,  W&J. 
[    hit,  hfit 

jf,  pTi,  gli, 

fun,  pliiz,  tougli.) 

y» 

]    y8n,  yet 

1T» 

Tin§,  hive. 

i, 

,    let,  tale. 

<fh, 

£hln,-ha(h. 

r, 

«    rit,  tir. 

1ft, 

tiien,  lathe. 

m, 

>    mit,  im. 

JO,  8, 

cent,  sent 

n,               «    net,  fin. 

t*»  <?»  9>  T» 

zero,  discern,  ^eb^€. 

n,  ng,        *'    sink,  ring. 

I—  as,  late,  they. 

if     as,  prun^,  m6Te,  mo*bn,  'dre/w. 

]  |    "  let,  said,  (biiry> 

j)     "  full,  bo'ok,  w6min. 

I/   "  far,  (sergeinty 

1/^   "burn,  word,  herd,  bird,  myrrh. 

j\    "fist 

^  ««  bun,  s6n. 

J  /    "  fare,  there.- 

•1  \     "  fit. 

r  .  .    as,  feet,  pique,  (quay). 

DIPHTflONGJi 

v  •      "  fit,  bee.n,  bdsy,  (w6men). 

f   as,  fine,  t^pe. 

•<    as,'not§,  s5w,  (hiu^boy). 

_/"(  "  cow,  loud. 

IA    "  «4ught,  wall. 

.  AI  "  °^>  ^^y; 

(V    «  eot,  watcfli. 

C     "  fuse,  ne*. 

II.     A  SAMPLE  OF  ALPHABETIC  REFORM  PRINT. 

By*  the  *plionede  alphabet  a  drild  may  be  tAught  the  firt  3f 
reading,  n6t  fluently,  but  welj,  both  in  plionetie  and  in  6rdinary 
books,  in  three  mdnths  —  ilye,  often  in  twenty  hourj  3f  fliSrough 
instructidn  >  a  task  whidh  is  rarely  ieefimplished  in  three  years  6f  toil 
by  the  old  alphabet..  "VSTiat  father  6r  teadlier  will  ndt  gladly  hail 
and  earnestly  work  for  this  gr§at  b6on  td  education  —  this 
mUchm?  f6r  the  diffusion  6f  knfiwl^ge. 


*Dols  above  g  and  y,  and  below  other  letters  Indicate  silent  letters.    The  signs  are  omltttd  (or 
the  alphabetic  sounds  of  a,  e.  I.  o  and  u.  except  for  exact  representation. 
As  copyrighted,  1894,  by  Rev.  James  W.  Shearer,  St-  Louis.  Mo. 

FIG.  eo.  —  The  Shearer  System. 


272  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

The  word  method,  beginning  with  the  "Orbis  Pictus" 
of  Comenius,  1657,  and  taught  by  various  reformers, 
notably  by  Jacotot  in  France  and  Worcester  and  Horace 
Mann  in  America,  was  very  little  used  in  America  until 
1870,  when  progressive  teachers  began  using  it  in  various 
parts  of  the  country.  The  pictures  of  the  "Orbis  Pictus" 
were  intended  to  suggest  the  names  printed  below, 
"without  using  any  ordinary  tedious  spelling."  In  the 
word  method,  the  whole  sound  of  the  word  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  word's  total  visual  appearance,  and  is 
suggested  just  as  the  name  of  any  other  object  comes  to 
mind  on  seeing  the  whole  object.  Children  learn  the  name 
of  a  word  about  as  quickly  as  that  of  a  letter,  and  recog- 
nize the  whole  word  about  as  quickly  as  they  recognize 
a  single  letter.  A  word  is  not  a  sum  of  letter-names,  any- 
way, nor  even  merely  of  letter- sounds.  Its  visual  appear- 
ance, indeed,  is  not  a  sum  of  letter-appearances,  but  has  a 
character  of  its  own.  So  the  word  method  short-circuits 
the  whole  process  of  word  learning.  The  method  is  very 
generally,  almost  universally  used  at  present,  but  usually  in 
combination  with  the  phonic  or  sentence  methods,  or  both. 
It  is  argued  that  the  method  does  not  give  the  pupil  power 
to  pronounce  for  himself  words  that  have  not  been  met  be- 
fore, and  that  phonics  is  finally  necessary  for  this  purpose. 

The  sentence  method,  although  suggested  by  Comenius, 
was  scarcely  used  in  America  until  popularized  through 
the  experiments  of  Farnham  in  the  schools  of  Bingham- 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  273 

ton,  New  York,  about  1870,  and  was  not  widely  adopted 
until  1885-1890.  Farnham's  little  pamphlet,  "The  Sen- 
tence Method  of  Reading,"  is  still  a  very  fair  presentation 
of  the  method.  The  method  urges  that  the  sentence,  and 
not  the  word  or  letter,  is  the  true  unit  in  language,  expressing 
whole  thoughts  which  are  the  units  in  thinking.  If  the 
sentence  is  the  natural  unit  in  language,  it  is  the  natural 
unit  in  reading  as  in  speaking.  As  the  word  is  not  a  mere 
sum  of  letter-sounds  and  letter-names,  neither  is  the  sen^ 
tence  merely  a  sequence  of  word-sounds  and  word-names. 
It  has  a  distinctive  total  sound  and  appearance  and  meaning 
indicated  plainly  in  the  way  it  is  spoken  when  its  meaning 
is  felt.  It  is  read  and  spoken  naturally  only  when  this  total 
meaning  is  prominent  in  the  consciousness  of  the  reader 
or  the  speaker.  Hence  the  attention  to  letters,  elementary 
sounds,  words,  and  word-meanings  —  cultivated  by  the 
alphabet,  phonic,  and  word  methods  —  must  be  displaced 
by  attention  to  sentence  wholes  and  sentence  meanings. 

In  using  the  sentence  method,  the  teacher  has  come  to 
make  much  use  of  the  blackboard.  A  sketch  of  some 
object  or  scene  interesting  to  the  child  suggests  to  the 
child  a  thought  which  he  expresses  in  a  sentence.  The 
teacher  writes  this  sentence  and  it  is  read,  naturally  with 
expression  since  the  child's  own  thought  here  leads  the 
expression.  Other  sentences  are  suggested,  written,  and 
read,  until  perhaps  a  little  story  of  the  picture  is  finished, 
all  of  which  the  child  can  soon  "read"  with  natural  ex- 


274  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

pression.  Sometimes  the  child's  experiences  on  an  ex- 
cursion or  at  play  or  at  work  are  thus  written  up  as  he 
tells  them  and  made  into  a  story  which  he  soon  can  "read," 
although  not  at  first  knowing  the  place  of  a  single  word. 
But  the  frequent  recurrence  of  certain  word-forms,  and 
sometimes  substitutions,  such  as  "I  have  a  dog,"  "I  have 
a  knife,"  etc.,  bring  these  particular  word -forms  to  his 
attention,  and  the  sentence-wholes  are  gradually  analyzed 
into  their  constituent  words  and  these  again,  in  time, 
into  their  constituent  sounds  and  letters.  The  important 
thing  is  to  begin  with  meaning  wholes  and  sentence 
wholes,  make  thought  lead,  and  thus  secure  natural  ex- 
pression, letting  analysis  follow  in  its  own  time.  The 
method  goes  famously  at  first,  like  the  word  method,  and 
naturally  gives  more  "legato"  reading  than  does  the  latter; 
but  it  breaks  down  when  the  child  attempts  to  read  new 
matter  for  himself,  so  the  teachers  commonly  say.  Hence 
the  sentence  method,  too,  is  usually  combined  with  or 
supplemented  by  phonics. 

Perhaps  we  should  catalogue  still  another,  the  imitative 
method.  In  the  Orient,  children  bawl  in  concert  over 
a  book,  imitating  their  fellows  or  their  teacher  until  they 
come  to  know  what  the  page  says  and  to  read  it  for  them- 
selves. Many  an  American  child  cannot  remember  when 
reading  began,  having  by  a  similar  method  pored  over  the 
books  and  pictures  of  nursery  jingles  and  fairy  tales  that 
were  told  to  him,  until  he  could  read  them  for  himself. 


THE   PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 


275 


Miss  Everett,  writing  in  the  New  York  Teachers'  Mono- 
graphs, thinks  that  some  day  the  debris  and  obtrusive 
technique  of  reading  methods  may  melt  away  into  the 
simplicity  of  some  such  practice 
as  this. 

These  are  the  methods,  about 
all  that  are  to  be  found  in  use  any- 
where, although  these  are  mixed 
in  endless  combinations,  and  the 
most  various  and  often  elaborate 
devices  are  invoked  to  make  them 
interesting  and  effective.  For  in- 
stance, "reading  machines"  are 
used  in  Germany,  but  mainly  to 
permit  of  quick  combinations  of 
printed  letters  into  words  or  of 
words  into  sentences.  The  cut 
below  represents  a  "machine" 
that  has  been  much  used.  The 
apparatus  consists  of  a  large  rec- 
tangular frame  with  rollers  above 
and  below.  On  these  run  strips  of  linen  bearing  letters 
and  letter-groups  as  shown.  The  front  of  the  machine 
is  covered,  except  for  a  horizontal  cleft  to  expose  the 
words  formed,  as  lernen  in  the  cut.  The  rolls  can  be 


FIG.  si.1  — A  "Reading 
Machine." 


1  From  Fechner's  "  Grundriss  der  Geschichte  der  Wichtigsten  Lese- 
lehrarten,"  by  permission  of  Wiegandt  and  Grieben,  Berlin. 


276  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

turned  to  form  words  as  desired.  The  American  teacher, 
however,  prefers  the  blackboard  and  script.  This  is  better 
for  the  teacher's  own  use,  when  supplemented  by  charts. 
For  the  pupil's  practice  in  word  and  sentence  making,  how- 
ever, the  reading  machines  would  doubtless  be  worth  a  trial. 
Concerning  texts,  manuals,  and  specific  systems  for 
teaching  children  to  read,  the  writer  has  recently  examined 
with  some  care  more  than  a  hundred,  representing  the 
best  that  could  be  found  in  the  modern  literature  of  the 
subject.  The  leading  publishers  kindly  sent  in  the  texts 
that  had  their  first  recommendation,  and  teachers  of  read- 
ing in  various  quarters  were  consulted.  In  working  over 
the  primers  and  first  readers,  one  is  impressed  with  the 
fact  that  the  artistic  side  has  had  far  more  attention  and 
a  far  greater  development  than  has  the  side  of  method  and 
reading  content.  The  books  are  often  superbly  illus- 
trated, in  colors  or  with  fine  photographs,  and  the  covers 
and  typography  are  most  attractive.  Of  course  these  are 
the  features  which  sell  the  books  when,  as  too  often  occurs, 
the  selection  of  texts  is  in  the  hands  of  persons  who  have 
no  special  familiarity  with  the  methods  and  needs  of  the 
subject  concerned.  Competition  has  therefore  forced  the 
publishers  to  give  special  attention  to  the  art  side.  It  is  a 
matter  of  gratification  that  we  now  have  books  that  are  so 
attractive  and  that  set  before  the  child  high  standards  of 
beauty.  It  is  an  open  question,  however,  whether  the 
idealization  of  many  of  the  pictures  'is  not  an  adult  one 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   HEADING  277 


Blashford. 

FIG.  52.  — The  Bells. 
(Illustration  from  F.  Lilian  Taylor's  First  Reader.) 


278 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING 


that  i§  somewhat  foreign  to  the  child,  and  whether  the 
use  of  the  child  kind  of  sketches,  motivated  as  his  own 
illustrative  drawings  are  motivated,  would  not  reach  his 
real  needs  and  interests  better  than  these  exquisite  adult 
expressions.  It  is  a  question,  anyway,  how  much  reading 
owes  to  his  aesthetic  development,  when  pictures  are 
needed  rather  to  assist  with  natural  child  interpretation 
of  what  is  read.  The  reading-books  compiled  by  Jessie 
L.  Smith,  in  which  children's  stories  are  illustrated  by 
children's  own  illustrative  drawings,  suggest  a  very 
different  ideal  which  is  at  least  worth  considering.  A 
specimen  illustration  is  shown  below. 


FIG.  53.  —  George  Goes  Surveying.1 
(Philip  Redmond  —  age,  12.) 

Next  to  the  beauty  of  the  primers,  the  most  striking 
thing  about  at  least  three-fourths  of  them  is  the  inanity 

1  From  Smith's  "  The  Story  of  Washington,"  copyright  by  E.  H.  Har- 
ison,  publisher,  New  York. 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  279 

and  disjointedness  of  their  reading  content,  especially  in 
the  earlier  parts.  No  trouble  has  been  taken  to  write 
what  the  child  would  naturally  say  about  the  subject  in 
hand,  nor  indeed,  usually,  to  say  anything  connectedly 
and  continuously  as  even  an  adult  would  naturally  talk 
about  the  subject.  The  language  used  often  shows  a 
patronizing  attempt  to  "get  down  to  the  child's  level," 
and  results  in  a  mongrel  combination  of  points  of  view 
and  of  expression  that  is  natural  neither  to  an  adult  nor 
to  a  child.  The  child  avoids  adults  who  try  to  play  with 
him  or  talk  with  him  in  this  manner,  and  down  in  his 
child  heart  he  scorns  such  reading-matter,  although  he  will 
often  plod  through  it  with  some  interest  to  please  a  beloved 
teacher.  I  quote  some  sentences  from  primers  that  are 
in  common  use  and  "highly  recommended":  — 

"Is  this  a  ball?"  "I  do  not  like  the  tall  grass." 

"Is  an  apple  round?"  "I  am  a  kite." 

"I  can  do  many  things."  "I  am  not  a  bird." 

"It  is  a  pear."  "How  came  you  here?" 

"You  see  my  dog."  "Run,  little  squirrel,  run." 

"Can  you  see  the  rat?     It  is  a  fat  rat.     Does  the  cat  see  the  rat?" 
"I  am  a  big  boy.     Do  you  see  me  on  the  wall?     I  will  not  fall." 
"Will  Fannie  fill  the  can  at  the  rill?" 
"Fred  is  a  boy.    Nell  is  a  girl." 

The  primers  contain  hundreds  of  just  such  sentences, 
and  yet  one  of  the  authors  of  these  insists  that  all  reading 
should  be  "like  talking."  How  a  child  could  talk  such 
stuff  naturally  is  beyond  comprehension,  and  reading  it 


280          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

can    scarcely    help    developing    that    drawling,    wooden 
monotone  so  generally  found  in  reading  classes. 

The  early  lessons  are  apt  to  be  composed  of  sentences 
thrown  together  with  little  more  than  this  of  relation 
between  them.     Now  the  child,  on  the  other  hand,  loves 
a  story,  loves  to  get  somewhither  in  what  is  said,  wants 
an   outcome    to    the   discussion,  and   has   a   persistence 
and  continuity  of  thought  that   are   constantly   violated 
by  such  "sentence -hash."     Better  a  thousand  times  that 
we  have  no  primers  than  that  we  inflict  such  travesties 
on  the  child.     No   wonder   that    sometimes  the  authors 
withhold  their  names.     The  actual  aim  that  has  guided 
in   the  selection  and  arrangement  of  most  of  the  early 
reading-matter  has  been  the  development  of  the  power 
to  recognize  and  pronounce  words.    Although  the  authors 
often  disavow  this  and  perhaps  desired  otherwise,  the 
selections  are  such  as  to  make  reading  a  matter  of  word- 
pronouncing  mainly.     In  some  'of  the  beginners'  books," 
it  is  true,  the  lessons  in  word  recognition  and  pronuncia- 
tion are   strictly   separated   from   the   reading  exercises  I 
proper,  and  the  child  is  supposed  to  already  know  all  the 
words  of  a  sentence  before  he  attempts  to  read  it.     But/ 
very  often  this  distinction  is  not  even  attempted.     Mostj 
of  the  books  teach  phonics  by  one  device  or  another,  usu-i 
ally  beginning  after  the  child  has  had  a  little  practice  by  \ 
the  word  or  sentence  method.    Too  often  the  line  between  \ 
phonics  and  reading  is  not  drawn. 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  281 

On  the  whole,  the  better  classes  of  beginners'  books 
have  worked  out  with  considerable  care  the  successive 
steps  in  learning  to  pronounce  words  as  they  will  meet 
the  child  in  new  reading  matter.  The  lessons  develop 
logically  and  easily  until  this  power  is  acquired.  They 
do  this,  however,  by  an  adult  method  rather  than  by  one 
natural  to  the  child  mind,  and  they  do  it  at  the  expense 
of  the  child's  formation  of  natural  habits  of  reading,  of 
using  language  generally,  and  of  thinking. 

A  few  of  the  systems  of  teaching  reading  deserve  special 
mention,  either  from  their  prevalence  in  the  schools,  the 
care  with  which  they  have  been  worked  out,  or  their  hav- 
ing specially  distinctive  features.  Of  these  the  "Synthetic 
Method  of  Reading  and  Spelling,"  by  Rebecca  S.  Pollard, 
has  been  very  widely  used,  although  its  popularity  is  wan- 
ing. This  method  is  purely  phonic,  almost  arrogantly  so. 
The  author  states  that  "there  must  be  no  guesswork,  no 
reference  to  pictures,  no  waiting  for  a  story  from  the 
teacher  to  develop  the  thought ;"  and  again,  the  "word  and 
synthetic  methods  cannot  be  combined."  The  main  busi- 
ness of  the  method  is  to  make  the  child  able  to  pronounce 
words  for  himself  as  he  comes  to  them  in  reading  new 
matter,  and  it  accomplishes  this  result  pretty  effectually. 

In  its  long  "Johnny  Story,"  which  is  told  to  the  child 
section  by  section,  Johnny  goes  to  the  country  and  hears 
the  dog  growl  rr,  the  frog  croak  g,  the  train  puff  ch,  etc., 
seeing  all  sorts  of  performances  and  objects  which  suggest 


282  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

the  elementary  sounds  and  printed  characters  and  which  be- 
come associated  with  them.  An  interminable  list  of  letter- 
sounds  is  thus  woven  into  the  story,  with  the  diacritically 
marked  characters  representing  each.  The  following  ex- 
tract1 from  the  "  Johnny  Story"  will  illustrate  the  process: — 

"But  about  this  sound  which  Johnny  calls  'a  pant.'  Here  are 
the  letters  which  stand  for  it,  'breath  letters,'  h  =  H.  When  you 
make  these  scales,  breathe  out  in  this  way,  h  =  H.  Breathe  very 
gently.  Notice,  too,  that  both  teeth  and  lips  are  open.  Now  why 
is  not  this  a  voice  letter?" 

"Oh!"  said  Johnny,  "because  we  just  breathe  out  its  sound." 
"Yes,  that  is  just  the  reason.  Remember,  you  are  not  to  sound 
hH,  but  just  breathe  out  easily  and  run  the  sound  into  the  next  let- 
ter; as,  hit,  hem,  how.  You  may  think  little  h  is  the  picture  of  the 
chair  Bess  sits  in  when  she  is  very  tired.  As  she  sits  down  she 
breathes  hard,  h,  h,  h." 

"How  much  this  little  fellow  changed  when  he  grew  up !  I  should 
not  suppose  these  were  the  same  letters,  h  =  H.  Perhaps  the  large 
one  stands  for  the  tired  man's  pant  and  the  small  one  for  the  baby's, 
or  the  little  dog's  hard  breathing." 

CHAPTER   Vin 

"There  are  pigeons  at  the  barn,  mamma.  What  letter  stands  for 
the  sound  they  make?" 

"This  one:  d  =  D.  It  is  a  sound  made  by  young  pigeons.  You 
may  outline  these  pigeons  and  sound  as  you  print  each  d." 

"This  sound  presses  the  tongue  up,  near  its  point,  a  little  harder 
than  n.  Try  the  two  together,  n,  d,  n,  d." 

"I  can  scarcely  hear  that  sound  when  you  make  it." 

"No,  you  can  not.  It  is,  besides,  a  hard  sound  to  make,  but  I 
think  it  sounds  like  the  young  pigeon's  cry.  As  d  stands  for  what 
1  Reproduced  by  permission  of  American  Book  Company. 


THE   PEDAGOG^T   OF   READING  283 

the  young  pigeons  say,  you  may  just  think  how  those  two  little  fellows 
will  talk  when  the  eggs  are  hatched.     It  will  be  d,  d,  d,  then." 

By  songs,  pictures,  and  all  sorts  of  personifications,  these 
associations  are  drilled  in.  The  children  diacritically 
mark  the  words  in  their  spellers  and  readers;  they  form 
words  from  the  letters,  sometimes  with  a  rotary  machine ; 
they  learn  the  long  families  of  words  like  bake,  cake,  lake, 
take,  of  the  -ake  family,  back,  lack,  hack,  of  the  -ack  family, 
etc.  There  are  many  rules  to  be  learned  and  more  excep- 
tions to  rules.  The  pupil  is  to  be  kept  constantly  busy 
printing  and  marking  letters,  making  words,  learning  the 
voice-letters,  lip-letters,  and  what  not  else.  The  vocal  or- 
gans are  described  to  him  and  he  learns  the  position  of  the 
articulatory  organs  for  the  various  sounds.  Everything  is 
personified  and  suited  to  the  child's  imaginative  interest 
so  far  as  possible.  The  small  letters  are  boys  that  grow  to 
be  men  and  become  capital  letters,  sometimes  changing 
their  appearance  entirely.  Each  letter  is  a  non-talking 
baby  and  the  child  must  be  mamma  and  talk  for  him,  in- 
terpreting what  he  wants  to  say.  The  c  sound  is  such  as 
when  the  fishbone  troubled  Johnny,  and  so  on  endlessly. 

Granting  the  care  and  completeness  with  which  the 
method  has  been  worked  out,  and  the  success  which  it 
has  met  in  the  "mastery  of  word-structure  and  word-call- 
ing," it  must  be  pronounced  intensely  artificial  and  adult 
in  its  conceptions,  and  destructive  of  right  habits  of  read- 
ing and  of  using  language  generally.  The  phonic  ele- 


284  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

ments  are  made  to  precede  the  word,  the  word  is  made 
to  precede  the  idea,  and  the  sentence  comes  last  of  all, 
just  the  opposite  of  the  natural  procedure.  Besides,  to 
burden  the  young  pupil  with  the  cumbersome  technique  of 
such  a  method  and  to  so  fill  his  mind  with  the  dead  prod- 
ucts of  adult  analysis  is  a  crime  against  childhood  which 
cannot  long  be  suffered.  Even  in  perfectly  attaining  its 
ideal  it  has  not  taught  the  child  to  read,  and  is  most  likely 
to  permanently  unfit  him  for  intelligent,  natural  reading. 

The  "Rational  Method,"  by  Professor  Ward  of  the 
Brooklyn  schools,  is  perhaps  the  most  increasingly  and 
deservedly  popular  of  the  present-day  methods.  It  is  a 
combination  of  the  word,  sentence,  and  phonic  methods, 
beginning  as  a  pure  word  and  sentence  method  until  a 
small  vocabulary  of  "  sight- words  "  is  known.  The  intro- 
ductory sentences  in  its  primer,  it  is  to  be  regretted,  are 
most  inane  and  unnatural,  and  should  certainly  never  be 
used,  as  indeed  the  author  himself  practically  advises. 
Blackboard  work  is  urged  instead. 

After  a  couple  of  months  of  the  "sight  work,"  the  child 
is  taught  the  sounds  of  certain  easily  sounded  letters,  and 
of  some  oft-recurring  combinations  (phonograms)  like  -ight, 
-ing,  etc.  He  is  drilled  in  blending  letter  sounds  into 
words,  and  learns  to  do  everything  promptly  at  sight. 
The  phonetic  work  is  kept  apart  from  reading,  in  the 
start,  and  the  sentence  is  never  supposed  to  be  read  until 
the  child  is  sure  of  all  its  word-sounds.  Training  of  the 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  285 

ear  and  of  articulation  go  on  separately  from  reading, 
by  slow  pronunciation  of  words  and  phonograms,  thus 
analyzing  them.  When  reading  by  phonetics  begins,  in 
the  third  month,  phonograms  that  have  been  learned 
are  underlined,  as  in " flight, "  "going, "and  single  letters 
are  diacritically  marked  when  this  is  needed.  A  larger 
and  larger  range  of  diacritical  marks  is  introduced,  and 
more  and  more  phonograms,  as  -ick,  qu-,  -ness,  -ful,  etc. 
New  sight- words,  too,  are  continually  introduced.  The 
pupil  thus  gradually  acquires  power  to  read  for  himself 
anywhere,  learning  the  words  either  as  wholes  (sight- 
words),  or  through  knowing  the  sounds  of  their  con- 
stituent phonograms  and  letters,  at  least  when  the  letters 
are  marked.  The  folio  whig  extract1  from  the  Ward 
First  Reader  (p.  119)  shows  the  marking  employed:  — 

x  Once  upon  a  tlm$  there  were  t^p,  little  dogs. 
They  were  namj^d  Jippjr  and  Jimmy.  They  liv^d  in 
a  lumber  yard.  It  was  ne$r  the  river  by  a  d8ck. 

a.  The  mother  of  the  pup|fi^g  was  an  Irish  setter. 
She  was  kept  in  the  yard,  beeajig^  ghe  was  a  good 
watch-dog.  She  was  cha^d  to  her  kgnnj^l.  This 
was  a  home  for  her  and  her  chndrgn. 

9,  The  pup|fi^§  played  cjos^  by.  They  never  thojigjit 
of  running  a  way.  They  had  never  seen  any  thing  but 
lumber.  They  did  not  J£no^  there  was  anything 
to  see. 

FIG.  54. 
1  Reproduced  by  permission  of  Silver,  Burdett  &  Co. 


286  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

For  the  early  reading  the  marks  are  retained,  but  the  child 

comes  to  use  them  less  and  less  as  the  words  become 

• 

familiar  as  wholes,  and  the  mark  crutches  are  gradually 
dropped  during  the  latter  half  of  the  second  year,  supple- 
mentary readers  beginning  to  be  used  by  this  time. 

The  Ward  method  uses  script  at  first,  changing  later  to 
print,  the  author  finding  that  the  transition  can  be  made 
in  a  week  or  so  of  practice.  The  later  reading- matter 
consists  of  simple  and  interesting  stories,  child  conversa- 
tions, etc.,  being  a  great  improvement  on  the  introduc- 
tory matter.  The  method  is  well  thought  out  and  is 
comparatively  effective.  It  is  doubtless  the  most  usable 
specific  system  that  is  available  at  present,  though  it  is 
not  in  line  with  the  changes  to  be  urged  for  the  elementary 
school.  The  criticisms  to  be  made  upon  it  will  perhaps 
suggest  themselves  best  in  the  later  chapters  on  learning 
to  read  at  home  and  at  school. 

The  Comprehensive  Method,  by  Emma  K.  Gordon,  is 
becoming  very  popular  in  some  parts  of  New  England. 
It  has  much  in  common  with  the  Ward  method,  but  it 
begins  with  phonics.  "Thorough  work  in  phonics  lies 
at  the  base  of  all  rational  teaching  of  reading,"  the  author 
states.  The  letters  and  familiar  combinations  of  letters 
(phonograms)  are  printed  on  card  squares  which  the  child 
can  handle,  and  he  is  taught  their  sounds.  The  sounds 
are  likened  to  those  heard  in  Nature,  as  the  dog's  growl 
for  r,  etc.,  and  stories  are  told  which  bring  out  these 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  287 

resemblances,  somewhat  as  in  the  more  comprehensive 
Johnny  Story  of  the  Pollard  method.  Sh  is  associated 
with  the  gesture  of  warning  and  with  pictures  of  objects  that 
make  this  sound.  Personification  is  much  used.  There  are 
the  -ack,  -ing,  and  other  families  familiar  in  the  Pollard 
method.  There  is  much  practice  in  blending  the  sounds 
/and  phonograms  into  words,  and  much  training  of  the  ear 
and  the  articulation.  Charts  are  much  used  for  drill  work. 
So  the  power  to  read  new  words  phonetically  is  devel- 
oped. Words  not  phonetic  in  spelling  are  taught  as  sight- 
words,  but  are  not  allowed  to  appear  at  first,  and  sight- 
words  are  given  sparingly  for  a  good  while.  The  phonic 
work  is  kept  apart  from  reading,  which  does  not  begin 
until  the  second  month.  The  child  then  reads  whole 
thoughts  from  the  start,  and  always  from  an  unmarked 
page.  The  author  manages  to  get  along  without  using 
diacritical  marks.  She  claims  that  after  the  first  few 
months,  "the  child  who  has  comprehended  the  drill  reads 
easily  ten  pages  a  day,"  and  the  publishers  make  startling 
assertions  as  to  the  number  of  primers  that  can  be  read  in 
the  second  year,  after  this  drill.  The  reading-matter  in 
the  first  book  is  of  the  typical  disjointed,  unnatural,  primer 
kind  which  the  child  should  never  be  permitted  to  see. 
As  a  phonic  method  the  system  has  much  of  excellent  sug- 
gestion, but  its  use  should  certainly  be  deferred  until  the 
child  mind  has  grown  measurably  prepared  to  deal  with 
these  phonic  products  of  adult  analysis. 


288          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

Funk  and  Wagnalls  have  recently  issued  the  "  Standard 
First  and  Second  Reader,"  and  a  teacher's  pocket  manual 
for  each.  These  readers,  besides  being  most  beautifully 
illustrated,  are  distinctive  in  their  careful  working  out  of 
a  phonetic  method,  teaching  pronunciation  by  the  use, 
from  the  start,  of  the  Scientific  Alphabet  as  now  made 
familiar  in  the  Standard  Dictionary.  By  the  help  of 
songs  especially,  and  by  teaching  the  position  of  the 
articulatory  organs  for  each  sound,  the  child  is  trained  to 
associate  correct  sound  values  with  the  characters  of 
this  alphabet,  and  learns  his  vocabularies  through  their 
use.  The  reading  lessons  themselves  are  printed  in  the 
ordinary  alphabet,  without  marks,  but  are  sometimes  dupli- 
cated in  the  Scientific  Alphabet  on  the  succeeding  page,  as 
illustrated  in  the  selection  already  given.  At  the  end  of 
each  reader  is  a  vocabulary  of  its  words  in  both  alphabets, 
thus  showing  the  pronunciation  of  the  words.  The  earlier 
reading  lessons  have  a  good  deal  of  the  disjointed,  'primer' 
kind  of  talk,  relieved,  however,  by  frequent  picture-read- 
ing and  by  short  poems,  quotations,  and  songs.  The 
Second  Reader  is  made  up  of  well- chosen  selections  from 
our  best  literature.  These  Readers  mirror  the  high  ideals 
of  their  authors,  and  their  use  of  the  phonetic  system 
merits  the  attention,  at  least,  of  all  teachers  of  reading; 
although  the  writer  would  by  no  means  make  such  a  sys- 
tem introductory  to  reading,  not  at  all  agreeing  with  the 
authors'  assertion  that  "to  detect  and  produce  each  of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 


the  fifty-two  sounds  that  make  up  the  spoken  English 
language  .  .  .  should  be  a  chief  aim  in  the  first  two 
years  of  a  pupil's  school  life." 


1.  Have  you  ever  seen    a    large 
climbing  up  the  bark  of  a  '^K? 

2.  In    this    tgjgp    there    are    one,    two, 
three  Q 

3.  See  the  -^L  take  its  morning 

4.  A  boy  is  sitting  on  a  M  with   a  tart 
in  one  ^_^  and  a  gg  in  the  other. 

5.  There  are  large  tifcL<  on  tne 


6.  This  ^^%&  has  a  clasp  on  it. 

FIG.  55-1 — Picture  Readings. 

Reference  will  be  made  to  some  of  the  other  more  note- 
worthy beginners'  books  in  later  chapters.  We  will  now 
glance  at  the  actual  procedure  in  teaching  to  read,  in  two 
institutions  which  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  better 
practice  of  American  pedagogy.  I  have  mainly  used 
data  which  is  accessible  to  all,  descriptive  of  the  work  in 

1  Reproduced  from  the  Standard  First  Reader  by  permission  of  Funk 
&  Wagnalls  Co. 
U 


290  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

reading  in  the  Horace  Mann  School  of  Teachers  College, 
Columbia  University,  and  in  the  Chicago  Institute,  later 
incorporated  as  a  part  of  the  Department  of  Education 
in  the  University  of  Chicago.  The  quotations  and  other 
data  concerning  the  Horace  Mann  School  are  from  the 
articles  by  Edith  C.  Barnum  in  the  Teachers  College 
Record  for  January  and  September,  1906:  — 

First  Year  Work  in  the  Horace  Mann  School. 

"In  the  first  grade  in  the  Horace  Mann  School  more 
time  is  devoted  to  reading  than  to  any  other  subject,  in 
order  that  the  first  steps  may  be  mastered  in  this  year." 
Professor  Dewey's  ideal  is  avowed,  and  the  "first  lessons 
are  connected  with  the  work  on  primitive  life,"  —  the 
cave  man,  etc.  Stories  from  Stanley  Waterloo's  "Story 
of  Ab"  are  printed  in  pamphlet  form  and  given  to  each 
child  to  be  put  in  his  book-cover.  In  this  way  he  makes 
his  own  collection  of  stories.  The  following  is  the  first 
page  of  one  of  these  pamphlets:  — 

HORACE  MANN  SCHOOL 
FIRST  GRADE  READING  No.  2. 
One  day  Ab  was  swinging  in  a  tree. 
He  was  nine  years  old,  now. 
He  saw  something  swinging  in  another  tree. 
It  was  another  brown  boy. 
Who  are  you?"  asked  Ab. 
•'I  am  Oak.    Who  are  you?" 
"I  am  Ab.    I  am  not  afraid  of  you." 
"I  am  not  afraid  of  you,  either,"  said  Oak. 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  2OI 

i 

"Let  us  throw  stones  into  the  river,"  said  Ab. 

"All  right,"  said  Oak. 

They  played  for  a  long  time. 

Then  they  went  home. 

The  next  day,  Ab  went  to  see  Oak. 

The  boys  went  to  play  in  the  woods. 

They  played  for  a  long  time. 

"The  child  is  not  held  responsible  for  knowing  sepa- 
rately all  of  the  words  that  appear  in  the  lesson,"  and  the 
vocabulary  is  "not  limited  to  a  very  few  words,"  the  pupil 
gaining  many  words  from  the  context. 

"Usually  about  three  months  are  devoted  to  the  stories 
about  Ab,  and  during  this  time  selections  are  also  read 
from  'Stepping  Stones  to  Literature'  (First  Reader), 
'Child  Life'  (First  Reader),  and  Cyr's  Primer.  After 
this  the  stories  of  'Nino  and  Juanita'  (connected  with 
the  work  on  primitive  life),  in  Carroll's  'Around  the 
World,'  are  read,  also  selections  from  Thompson's  'Fairy 
Tales  and  Fables'  (Second  Reader),  and  from  NorvelPs 
'Second  Book  of  Graded  Classics.'  About  March  the 
children  begin  to  read  Craik's '  Bow  Wow  and  Mew  Mew. ' " 
The  latter  book  appeals  to  the  children's  interest  in  animal 
life,  and  interests  also  by  its  conversational  style  and 
easily  pictured  situations.  The  children  take  their  books 
home  and  read  ahead  to  find  what  is  to  happen  next. 
"Mothers  often  report  that  their  children  spend  all  of 
their  spare  moments  in  reading  until  the  story  is  finished." 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  year  poems  are  read  "in  connec- 


2Q2  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

tion  with  the  literature,"  each  child  being  given  a  type- 
written copy  of  the  poem,  which  he  puts  in  his  book- 
cover,  making  a  collection  of  most  of  those  studied  during 
the  year. 

The  lessons  do  not  last  longer  than  ten  or  fifteen  minutes 
at  first,  gradually  increasing  to  half  an  hour.  At  first 
there  are  two  short  lessons  each  day,  but  only  one  when 
the.  length  of  the  period  is  increased.  The  class  (of 
twenty-five)  is  divided  into  two  groups,  according  to  the 
readiness  with  which  the  children  read. 

From  the  first  the  child's  attention  is  centered  on  the 
thought,  by  proper  questioning,  blackboard  sketches,  a 
limited  use  of  pictures,  brief  dramatizations,  and  by  using 
reading-matter  that  is  related  to  the  pupil's  other  studies. 
There  is  endeavor  to  have  the  pupil  read  fluently.  Chil- 
dren are  given  a  glance  at  familiar  sentences  pasted  upon 
cards  and  are  then  asked  to  reproduce  them ;  or  the  book 
is  opened  and  quickly  closed  and  the  pupil  reproduces 
what  he  sees.  He  is  not  allowed  to  point  at  the  words 
when  he  reads,  as  "this  habit  results  in  reading  word 
bv  word."  The  actual  procedure  in  beginning  with  the 
children  is  as  follows :  — 

Short  sentences,  in  print,  are  introduced  in  the  first 
lessons.  These  are  printed  on  cards  by  a  "Fulton  Sign 
and  Price  Marker,"  and  when  the  children  can  read  the 
individual  sentences,  these  are  then  arranged  to  tell  a 
story  and  are  printed  upon  a  chart.  Later,  new  sentences 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  293 

are  presented  in  groups  on  the  chart  first,  and  are  then 
read  from  the  pamphlets;  and  still  later  the  children 
"read  new  stories  from  the  pamphlets  without  any  pre- 
paratory chart  work." 

The  first  lesson  is  given  on  the  third  or  fourth  day  after 
the  children  enter  school,  interest  in  the  cave  man  and  the 
conditions  of  his  time  having  been  first  aroused.  In  the 
first  lesson  three  sentences  from  the  "Story  of  Ab"  are 
generally  learned  from  the  board,  the  sentences  telling 
part  of  the  story  to  the  children.  The  sentences  are  read 
as  wholes  at  first,  but  "Soon  the  children  begin  to  dif- 
ferentiate words,  and  some  child  will  say  'this  is  Ab'  or 
'this  is  the  cave,'"  or  some  one  is  asked  to  find  the  "word 
that  says 'Ab,'"  etc. 

The  context  is  used  to  suggest  what  the  new  words  are, 
or  the  new  word  is  named  for  the  child  if  he  would  lose 
the  main  thought  in  his  anxiety  about  the  word.  "A 
new  word  is  not  given  until  it  has  been  developed  in  the 
sentence."  "Some  drill  on  separate  words  is  necessary," 
on  words  which  will  be  used  over  and  over,  but  "the  best 
way  for  the  child  to  become  familiar  with  them  is  by  much 
reading."  The  child  need  not  know  every  word  in  the 
sentence  before  he  tries  to  read  it.  Various  devices  and 
games  are  used  to  give  the  pupils  drill  on  certain  words 
such  as  there,  where,  what,  etc.,  that  need  to  be  learned 
separately. 

The  children  are  likewise  given  daily  practice  in  pho- 


2Q4  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

netics,  but  not  as  a  part  of  the  reading  lessons,  "for 
phonetics  are  of  little  value  in  reading  until  the  child  has 
gained  some  proficiency  in  getting  separate  words  rapidly. 
If  this  method  is  used  too  soon,  it  results  in  word  reading, 
as  it  takes  so  long  to  get  the  word  that  the  thought  is 
lost."  When  the  children  once  know  the  sounds  of  the 
letters,  they  are  "encouraged  to  use  the  initial  sound 
together  with  the  content  of  the  sentence  in  getting  new 
words." 

The  work  in  phonetics  leads  to  clear  and  distinct 
enunciation.  In  the  first  lesson  /  is  taught  by  pronounc- 
ing to  the  children  words  beginning  with  this  sound. 
The  children  then  give  words  beginning  with  the  same 
sound,  a  card  with  the  printed  /  is  kept  before  them,  and 
from  time  to  time  the  children  give  its  sound.  So  all  the 
consonants  are  treated.  After  four  or  five  have  been 
taught  they  are  combined  with  an,  at,  etc.  The  short 
vowel  sounds  are  taught,  then  the  long.  The  children 
find  that  such  words  as  mate,  ending  in  e,  have  the  long 
sound,  but  that  such  words  without  the  e,  as  mat,  have  the 
short  sound.  No  diacritical  marks  are  used.  "By  the 
end  of  the  first  year  the  child  should  be  able  to  get  by 
the  sound  words  of  one  syllable,  made  up  of  regular  long 
and  short  vowels,  consonants,  and  simple  combinations 
of  consonants,  as  th,  sh,  wh,  etc." 

"It  is  apparent  that  no  one  method,  as  the  sentence 
method,  the  word  method,  or  the  phonetic  method,  is 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  295 

followed.  We  believe  that  the  teacher  must  use  any 
method  that  seems  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  child,  and 
that  one  teacher  may  give  her  pupil  the  power  of  gaining 
thought  and  help  him  to  form  right  habits  in  reading  in 
one  way,  while  another  teacher  may  do  the  same  thing  by 
an  entirely  different  method." 

Second  Year 

In  the  second  year  the  pupils  read  such  books  as  Hali- 
burton  and  NowelPs  Graded  Classics,  Books  II  and  III, 
or  Baker  and  Carpenter's  "  Second  Year  Language  Reader," 
or  Baldwin's  "Fairy  Tales  and  Fables;"  Wiley  and 
Edick's  "Children  of  the  Cliff"  and  "Lodrix,"  Button's 
"  In  Field  and  Pasture."  They  read  a  great  deal  this  year 
for  the  sake  of  practice.  Much  of  the  reading  is  easy,  is 
read  but  once,  and  without  much  delay  for  comment. 
Favorite  stories  and  poems  are  chosen  by  the  children  to 
be  read  several  times.  Children  bring  books  from  home 
to  read  to  the  others,  or  the  teacher  reads  them  parts  of 
stories,  leaving  the  children  to  finish  for  themselves. 

In  the  second  year  phonetics  deals  principally  "with 
the  sounds  of  many  combinations  of  letters,  such  as  oa, 
ea,  ai,  er,  ir,  ur,  or,  ar,  ay,  ight,  kn,  wr,  sc,  tch,  ow,  on, 
and  th"  For  instance,  the  teacher  pronounces  thick, 
thin,  think,  etc.,  and  the  children  listen  to  the  first  sound. 
Then  words  containing  it  are  written  on  the  board  and 
pronounced. 


296          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

Phonetics  is  still  kept  apart  from  reading,  though  there 
is  often  phonetic  practice  on  the  new  words  of  the  day's 
reading  lesson.  The  danger  of  reading  words  rather 
than  ideas  is  especially  great  in  this  year,  and  to  prevent 
this  aa  child  must  be  fairly  sure  of  the  words  and  the 
thought  in  a  paragraph  before  attempting  to  read  it 
aloud."  Silent  reading  is  encouraged,  and  there  is  much 
reading  to  the  children,  and  some  dramatization.  Many 
poems  are  memorized. 

Third  Year 

In  the  third  year  the  child's  interest  is  best  held  by  the 
"long  story,"  or  by  a  series  of  stories  in  which  the  same 
characters  appear.  Easy  reading  need  not  be  sought,  as 
"a  child  who  is  plunged  in  an  interesting  tale  reads  on 
in  his  eagerness  to  find  out  what  happens  next."  Corre- 
lation with  other  subjects  is  now  of  "secondary  impor- 
tance," as  this  results  in  inferior  literature  when  carried 
to  an  extreme.  "Hiawatha,"  "Alice  in  Wonderland," 
and  "Through  the  Looking  Glass,"  Cook's  "Story  of 
Ulysses,"  and  Brown's  "In  the  Days  of  Giants,"  are 
read  in  this  grade.  There  is  much  reading  from  a  num- 
ber of  other  books  and  poems.  "No  time  is  taken  from 
the  reading  in  developing  difficult  words,  in  the  so-called 
preparation  for  the  lesson.  The  pupil  gets  the  new 
word  from  the  context,  or  it  is  pronounced  for  him  and 
briefly  commented  upon  in  passing."  "Sometimes  a 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  297 

preliminary  talk  is  necessary  in  order  that  the  children 
may  feel  the  atmosphere  of  the  story,  but  the  less  analysis 
the  better." 

"In  this  year's  work,  the  apparent  gain,  in  reading  may 
not  be  as  great  as  in  preceding  years,  but  the  pupils  have 
definitely  formed  a  habit  of  reading,  so  that  they  volun- 
tarily read  at  home."  They  have  learned  to  give  pleasure 
in  the  home-circle  by  reading  aloud,  and  their  tastes  have 
been  directed  toward  making  a  conscious  distinction 
between  good  and  poor  literature. 

Reading  in  The  Chicago  Institute  and  in  the  Francis  W. 
Parker  School 

The  work  of  the  Chicago  Institute,  representing  also, 
in  the  main,  the  present  practice  of  the  Francis  W.  Parker 
School  in  Chicago,  is  well  presented  in  the  articles  by 
Miss  Flora  Cooke  in  the  Elementary  School  Teacher 
for  October,  1900,  and  April,  1904.  In  this  Chicago 
work  the  children  learn  to  read  as  they  learned  to 
talk,  "from  a  desire  to  find  out  or  tell  something." 
From  the  child's  point  of  view,  learning  to  read  will  be 
incidental  to  other  things  in  which  he  is  interested.  Will- 
ing effort  is  what  makes  him  learn  to  read  fast.  After  per- 
forming some  experiment,  or  perhaps  after  working  in  the 
garden  or  observing  things  in  nature,  the  children  gather 
to  tell  what  has  been  done,  and  the  teacher  writes  their 
statements  on  the  board.  They  read  and  correct  their 


298  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

own  statements,  and  often  these  are  printed  by  some  of 
the  older  children  and  returned  as  a  printed  story  of 
what  has  happened.  The  child  can  read  these,  knowing 
the  gist  of  it  already,  and  takes  the  printed  account,  per- 
haps, to  read  to  his  parents  at  home.  Below  is  a  selec- 
tion from  one  of  these  children's  stories  of  a  trip  to  a 
farm,  the  story  being  illustrated  by  photographs  taken 
during  the  trip :  — 

READING    LESSON    ON    THE    FARM    AT    THORNTON 

October  2,  1897,  we  went  to  visit  a  farm. 

It  was  a  beautiful  day. 

There  was  a  deep  blue  sky  above  us,  with  not  a  cloud  in  it,  and 
cool,  fresh  air  around  us. 

We  had  bright  sunshine  all  day  long. 

"The  nicest  day  of  all  the  year!"  said  Fritz. 

The  farm  we  visited  is  15  miles  from  our  school. 

It  is  on  Halsted  Street. 

We  might  have  gone  all  the  way  in  wagons,  but  that  was  too  slow 
for  us. 

It  only  took  us  42  minutes  to  go  on  the  train. 

Then  we  were  only  one  mile  and  a  half  from  the  farm. 

Big  hay-wagons  were  waiting  for  us  at  the  station. 

Oh,  what  fun  we  had  going  to  the  farm ! 

We  passed  a  big  limestone  quarry. 

We  wanted  to  see  it,  but  we  could  not  stop  for  that. 

We  passed  some  beautiful  oak  woods. 

We  wanted  to  gather  leaves,  but  we  could  not  stop  for  that. 

We  passed  a  great  yard  full  of  horses  and  colts. 

The  story  goes  on  relating  the  adventures  of  the  day,  with 
photographs  of  the  barn,  stacks,  cattle,  pigs;  of  the  chil- 


299 

dren  themselves  in  the  wood,  of  chopping  down  trees,  of 
stacked  wheat,  etc.  Along  with  this  story  of  their  own 
trip,  the  teacher  and  children  read  printed  accounts  of 
other  farm  visits  made  by  earlier  grades,  and  compare 
their  experiences.  The  knowledge  that  other  children 
are  to  read  their  own  account  gives  a  stimulus  to  good 
expression.  The  children  draw  or  suggest  illustrations 
for  making  the  story  clearer  to  readers.  The  motive  in 
reading  the  lesson  when  printed  is  to  live  over  the  day's 
experiences  again,  to  see  if  anything  important  has  been 
left  out,  and  to  see  if  the  account  is  such  as  will  interest 
mamma  or  absent  children. 

The  child's  reading  vocabulary  is  allowed  to  grow  with 
his  experience.  As  a  new  word  is  used  in  a  discussion 
about  garden  soils,  the  word  is  written  on  the  board  and 
is  pointed  to,  but  not  spoken,  when  used  later.  Its  visual 
form  is  thus  impressed  by  use.  The  child  may  make  a 
little  index  dictionary  of  these  new  words.  Diacritical 
marks  are  not  used  appreciably  until  the  third  grade, 
and  they  are  learned  then  to  permit  the  use  of  the  dic- 
tionary. Some  work  is  done  in  phonics,  but  this  is  en- 
tirely distinct  from  reading.  The  purpose  in  phonics  is 
to  teach  the  child  to  associate  certain  sounds  with  certain 
forms,  and  also  "to  strengthen  his  vocal  organs,"  and 
so  to  lead  "to  clear  enunciation  and  good  pronuncia- 
tion." The  work  is  usually  done  in  games  which  involve 
slow  pronunciation,  and  in  using  Mother  Goose  ditties 


300  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

and  other  rhymes.  As  reading  power  develops,  such 
stories  as  that  of  the  Pilgrims  are  printed  on  leaflets  and 
partially  told,  the  new  words  being  written  on  the  board, 
until  a  very  interesting  place  is  reached,  when  the  teacher 
sometimes  says:  "The  rest  of  that  story  is  here  on  this 
leaflet;  find  out  what  it  says  and  tell  us  on  the  black- 
board." Miss  Cooke  adds,  "It  has  been  our  experience 
that  when  a  real  desire  for  reading  has  been  awakened, 
the  children  have  not  been  willing  to  stop  until  they  have 
read  the  entire  leaflet  for  themselves." 

Thus  reading  and  writing  and  drawing  are  learned  in 
the  service  of  what  the  children  are  doing  as  a  social 
community.  Reading  is  not  made  an  end  in  itself,  and 
does  not  gather  the  mannerisms  and  the  debris  of  tech- 
nique that  accompany  reading  done  for  its  own  sake  and 
by  "Reading's"  own  special  methods. 

In  a  recent  letter  concerning  this  work  in  reading,  Miss 
Cooke,  now  of  the  Francis  W.  Parker  School,  says :  "  I 
can  vouch,  after  nearly  twenty  years'  experience,  that  the 
method  is  a  success  when  carried  out  by  a  thoughtful 
teacher.  ...  I  think  the  third  grade  children  are  good 
testimony  on  the  subject,  as  they  read,  with  ease,  fluency, 
and  pleasure,  almost  anything  one  can  put  into  their 
hands." 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    VIEWS    OF    REPRESENTATIVE    EDUCATORS    CONCERN- 
ING EARLY  READING 

A  SURVEY  of  the  views  of  some  of  our  foremost  and 
soundest  educators  reveals  the  fact  that  the  men  of  our 
time  who  are  most  competent  to  judge  are  profoundly 
dissatisfied  with  reading  as  it  is  now  carried  on  in  the 
elementary  school.  The  objections  are  made  from  widely 
different  points  of  view  and  for  correspondingly  various 
reasons;  but  they  are  most  serious,  and  they  merit  the 
careful  attention,  if  not  the  immediate  and  radical  action, 
of  those  who  have  the  keeping  of  our  schools. 

The  immense  amount  of  time  given  to  the  purely  formal 
use  of  printed  and  written  English  has  been  a  prime 
source  of  irritation.  It  seems  a  great  waste  to  devote, 
as  at  present,  the  main  part  of  a  number  of  school  years 
to  the  mere  mechanics  of  reading  and  spelling.  The 
unreasoned  and  unreasonable  devotion  to  our  irrational 
English  spelling  in  itself  robs  the  child  of  probably  two 
whole  years  of  school  life,  and  makes  him  and  all  of  us 
read  an  extra  book  for  every  five  or  six  that  are  necessary. 
This  is  well  shown  in  the  pamphlet  on  "  Spelling  Reform, " 
by  Professor  Francis  A.  March,  issued  by  Commissioner 


3O2  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

Harris  in  1893;  also  in  the  recent  literature  issued  by 
the  Simplified  Spelling  Board,  New  York.  But  even  with 
spelling  as  it  is,  there  is  a  general  feeling  that  there  is 
much  time- waste  that  might  be  eliminated. 

Again,  notwithstanding  all  the  time  and  effort  given  to 
the  subject,  the  results  too  often  show  only  mechanical, 
stumbling,  expressionless  readers,  and  poor  thought- 
getters  from  what  is  read.  The  mechanical  reading  is 
thought  to  come  from  learning  reading  as  mere  word-pro- 
nouncing ;  the  stumbling  and  hesitation,  from  the  over-at- 
tention to  form  as  against  content,  especially  from  the  early 
and  too  constant  analysis  of  the  reading  process  in  phonics 
—  just  as  one  sways  and  falls  from  a  log  when  he  attends 
to  how  he  is  walking  it.  The  poor  thought -getting  may 
be  supposed  to  come  from  the  simple  want  of  continued 
practice  in  reading  for  thought.  Colonel  Parker  insisted 
that  oral  reading  was  over-emphasized  as  compared  with 
thought -getting,  and  that  "saying  it  over"  was  the 
reader's  ideal.  Practice  in  abstracting  meanings,  in 
grasping  the  essentials  of  a  page's  thought,  has  been 
little  thought  of  in  the  reading  lesson. 

Along  with  these  conditions  there  have  come  premature 
reverence  for  books,  a  blindness  to  objective  realities, 
and  a  neglect  of  own  thinking  which  has  atrophied 
the  nai've  originality  of  the  children  and  made  them 
slaves  to  "what  is  written."  And  then  there  has  come 
the  immense  increase  of  near-sightedness  and  of  other 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  303 

degenerative  tendencies  due  to  near  work  and  to  bad 
positions  in  dealing  with  books  and  written  matter; 
and  there  has  come,  too,  the  nerve  strain  from  the  un- 
timely use  of  the  finer  muscles  of  eye  and  hand,  and  from 
the  overworking  of  the  associative  mechanism  concerned 
in  reading. 

Besides,  as  child  nature  is  being  systematically  studied, 
the  feeling  grows  that  these  golden  years  of  childhood, 
like  the  Golden  Age  of  our  race,  belong  naturally  to  quite 
other  subjects  and  performances  than  reading,  and  to 
quite  other  objects  than  books;  and  that  reading  is  a 
"Fetich  of  Primary  Education"  which  only  holds  its 
place  by  the  power  of  tradition  and  the  stifling  of  ques- 
tions asked  concerning  it.  It  is  believed  that  much  that 
is  now  strenuously  struggled  for  and  methodized  over  in 
these  early  years  of  primary  reading  will  come  of  them- 
selves with  growth,  and  when  the  child's  sense  organs 
and  nervous  system  are  stronger;  and  that  in  the  mean- 
time he  should  be  acquiring  own  experiences  and  develop- 
ing wants  that  will  in  time  make  reading  a  natural  demand 
and  a  meaningful  process,  with  form  and  book  always 
secondary  to  own  thought. 

Such  views  take  form  in  assertions  that  reading,  except 
at  least  as  an  exercise  entirely  incidental  to  other  activi- 
ties and  interests,  should  usually  be  deferred  until  the 
age  of  eight,  or  as  some  put  it,  until  the  age  of  nine  or 
ten.  Such  expressions  have  been  made  by  many  repre- 


304  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

sentative  educators  and  scientists,  among  whom  I  may 
mention  especially  President  Hall  and  Professor  Burn- 
ham  of  Clark  University,  Professor  Dewey  of  Columbia 
University,  Professor  Patrick  of  the  University  of  Iowa, 
and  Professor  Mosso,  the  world's  greatest  specialist  on 
Fatigue.  I  shall  sketch  in  some  detail  the  opinions  of 
Professors  Dewey  and  Patrick,  especially  since  these 
are  given  in  conveniently  accessible  form  in  recent 
articles  on  the  subject. 

In  the  New  York  Teachers'  Monographs,  November, 
1898,  Professor  Dewey  says  that  while  there  are  excep- 
tions, "present  physiological  knowledge  points  to  the  age 
of  about  eight  years  as  early  enough  for  anything  more 
than  an  incidental  attention  to  visual  and  written  lan- 
guage-form." In  an  article  on  "The  Primary  Education 
Fetich"  in  the  Forum,  Vol.  XXV,  he  gives  his  reasons 
for  such  a  conclusion.  While  the  fetich  of  Greek  is  pass- 
ing, there  remains,  he  says,  the  fetich  of  English,  that 
the  first  three  years  of  school  are  to  be  given  largely  to 
reading  and  a  little  number  work.  This  traditional 
place  was  given  to  reading  in  an  early  century,  when  the 
child  had  not  the  present  environment  of  art  gallery, 
music,  and  industrial  development,  but  when  reading  was 
the  main  means  of  rising  and  was  the  only  key  to  culture. 
Reading  has  maintained  this  traditional  place  in  the  face 
of  changed  social,  industrial,  and  intellectual  conditions 
which  make  the  problem  wholly  different, 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING  305 

Against  using  the  period  from  six  to  eight  years  for 
learning  to  read  and  write,  Professor  Dewey  accepts  the 
opinion  of  physiologists  that  the  sense-organs  and  nervous 
system  are  not  adapted  then  to  such  confining  work,  that 
such  work  violates  the  principle  of  exercising  the  funda- 
mental before  the  accessory,  that  the  cramped  positions 
leave  their  mark,  that  writing  to  ruled  line  forms  is  wrong, 
etc.  Besides,  he  finds  that  a  certain  mental  enfeeblement 
comes  from  too  early  an  appeal  to  interest  in  the  abstrac- 
tions of  reading. 

Again,  Professor  Dewey  believes  that  the  prevalent 
methods  of  teaching  reading  are  such  as  cultivate  wrong 
habits  and  attitudes  concerning  books.  One  can  pick  out 
the  children  who  learned  to  read  at  home.  They  read 
naturally.  One  cannot  read  naturally  when  he  reads  for 
reading's  sake.  Speaking  of  the  "utter  triviality  of  the 
contents  of  our  school  primers  and  first  readers,"  he 
suggests  taking  up  the  first  half  dozen  such  books  you 
meet  and  asking  yourself  "how  much  there  is  in  the  ideas 
presented  worthy  of  respect  from  any  intelligent  child  of 
six  years."  Methods  come  and  go,  but  all  "lack  the 
essentials  of  any  well-grounded  method,  viz.  relevancy 
to  the  child's  mental  needs.  No  scheme  for  learning  to 
read  can  supply  this  want.  Only  a  new  motive,  putting 
the  child  intq  a  vital  relation  to  the  materials  to  be  read, 
can  be  of  service  here."  Drill  on  form  "benumbs"  by 
its  monotony  and  repetition.  The  child  does  not  want  to 


306  THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING 

learn  reading  as  a  mechanical  tool.  He  must  have  a 
"personal  hunger"  for  what  is  read.  He  must  come,  too, 
to  his  reading  with  personal  experience  with  which  to 
appreciate  it. 

Slavish  dependence  upon  books,  with  real  inability  to 
use  them  effectively,  "is  one  of  the  results  of  the  present 
ideal.  Students  can't  see  for  themselves,  accordingly. 
They  ask  for  a  book  at  once,  if  told  to  study  an  object. 
It  shows  enfeeblement  from  the  'book  habit.'"  And  yet, 
with  all  the  dependence  upon  books,  we  find  that  students 
cannot  use  books  effectively,  cannot  get  the  point,  cannot 
make  synopses,  get  the  characteristic,  etc.  Students  that 
are  considered  good  students  are  deficient  here,  and 
wrong  habits  of  reading  are  at  the  bottom  of  it. 

Reading  must  be  postponed.  The  child  is  motor  at 
the  period  when  we  teach  him  to  read,  and  must  not  do 
this  passive  thing  so  much.  There  are  writing,  drawing, 
music,  painting,  modeling,  etc.,  for  the  earlier  years,  and 
nature  study.  Manual  training  and  work  belong  here. 
However,  Professor  Dewey  thinks  that  suddenly  to 
"throw  out"  the  language  work  from  the  early  grades 
would  be  a  mistake.  Present  educational  ways  must  be 
a  compromise.  The  schools  generally  cannot  completely 
change  until  experiment  schools,  now  on  the  frontier, 
work  out  best  ways.  The  hope  of  the  educational  world 
is  for  such  work  from  experiment  schools. 

Professor  Patrick  reviews  the  situation  in  an  article  in 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  307 

the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  January,  1899,  under  the 
title  "Should  Children  under  Ten  learn  to  Read  and 
Write?"  He  raises  the  question  whether  reading  and 
writing,  any  more  than  logic,  are  studies  for  the  young 
child.  Most  States  admit  children  to  school  at  six  years, 
more  than  one-third  admit  them  at  five.  In  a  general 
way,  during  the  first  four  years,  the  principal  subjects  are 
reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  In  the  first  and  second 
grades  of  the  Chicago  schools,  for  instance,  of  1350 
minutes  of  school  work  per  week,  reading  gets  just  half, 
writing  gets  75,  mathematics  gets  225.  Seventy-two  per 
cent  of  the  total  time  goes  to  these  three  subjects,  and 
the  same  percentage  holds  for  the  third  grade.  In  the 
fourth  grade  the  per  cent  is  over  fifty.  Other  cities 
usually  give  still  more  time  to  the  three  R's.  Country 
schools  are  still  worse,  giving  nearly  all. 

Now  we  do  this,  Professor  Patrick  thinks,  because  our 
grandfathers  did  it.  There  is  no  psychological  basis  for 
the  course  of  study  as  yet.  The  Committee  of  Fifteen 
concluded  that  "learning  to  read  and  write  should  be  the 
leading  study  of  the  pupil  in  his  first  four  years  of  school." 
The  Committee  expressed  present  general  opinion.  With 
the  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  music  and  gymnastics 
were  the  principal  subjects  instead,  and  their  system  gave 
excellent  results.  The  nervous  and  muscular  systems 
of  the  child  indicate  that  he  should  not  read  and  write 
so  early.  The  fine  movements  of  eyes  and  fingers  are 


308  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

for  later  times.  Confinement  to  a  seat  and  desk  is  bad 
for  the  child.  His  brain  activity  is  sensory  and  motor 
but  not  central.  So  he  should  learn  to  sense  and  per- 
ceive objects,  real  things,  not  dealing  mainly  with  symbols. 
Nature  study  is  wanted.  The  child  has  retentiveness 
and  may  study  history,  but  from  the  lips  of  a  narrator. 
History  taught  in  this  way  may  begin  here  with  profit. 

From  five  to  ten  is  the  "habit-forming  epoch,"  "tht 
time  to  teach  the  child  to  do  easily  and  habitually  a  larg& 
number  of  useful  things,"  the  time  to  teach  "habits  of 
conduct,  various  bodily  activities,  and  correct  habits  of 
speech,  expression,  and  singing."  The  fine  coordinations 
should  not  be  put  before  the  coarser  ones.  "There  are, 
at  any  rate,  three  subjects  which  are  strikingly  adapted 
to  this  period;  namely  natural  science,  history,  and 
morals,"  using  the  terms  with  latitude  and  restriction. 
Mathematics  in  every  form,  he  thinks,  is  a  subject  "con- 
spicuously ill-fitted  to  the  child  mind." 

There  are  great  truths  in  the  recapitulation  theory, 
and  reflection,  reading,  writing,  reasoning,  voluntary 
attention,  etc.,  came  late  to  the  race  and  should  not  be 
hurried  in  the  child.  To  make  him  read  and  write  first 
is  like  insisting  that  he  walk  before  he  creep. 

"The  language  of  the  child,  like  that  of  the  primitive 
man,  is  the  language  of  the  ear  and  tongue.  The  child 
is  a  talking  and  hearing  animal.  He  is  ear-minded. 
There  has  been  in  the  history  of  civilization  a  steady 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  309 

development  toward  the  preponderating  use  of  the  higher 
senses,  culminating  with  the  eye."  "An  adult  civilized 
man  is  now  strongly  eye-minded."  The  Greeks  had 
a  "decided  relative  ear-mindedness."  Laboratory  re- 
searches tend  to  confirm  the  recapitulation  theory  here. 
"It  is  the  spoken  language  which  belongs  to  the  ele- 
mentary school."  "The  ear  is  the  natural  medium  of 
instruction  for  young  children."  All  second-hand  knowl- 
edge should  come  to  the  child  "from  the  living  words  of 
the  living  teacher  or  parent,  not  through  the  cold  medium 
of  the  printed  book."  In  the  elementary  school,  the 
child  may  be  instructed  "in  language  as  it  relates  to  the 
ear  and  the  tongue,  and  this  is  the  real  language."  Teach 
him  to  speak  accurately  and  elegantly  and  to  listen  and 
remember.  Study  the  best  literature  of  the  mother- 
tongue  and  get  living  sympathetic  knowledge  of  it,  "  such 
as  can  never  come  through  the  indirect  medium  of  the 
book." 

"There  is  no  other  age  when  a  child  may,  with  so 
great  economy  of  effort,  gain  a  lasting  knowledge  of  a 
foreign  language  as  when  he  is  from  seven  to  eleven  years 
old."  Reading  will  be  learned  fast  when  the  time  comes. 
Valuable  time  is  wasted  on  it  in  the  early  years.  Better 
mental  habits  would  come  from  banishing  books  from 
the  primary  and  elementary  schools.  Children  left  at 
their  seats  to  "study"  at  an  age  when  voluntary  attention 
is  undeveloped  "acquire  habits  of  listlessness  and  mind- 


310  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

wandering"  that  are  difficult  to  overcome  afterward. 
"They  read  over  many  times  that  which  does  not  hold 
their  attention  and  is  not  remembered.  Lax  habits  of 
study  are  thus  acquired,  with  the  serious  incidental  result 
of  weakening  the  retentive  power,  which  depends  so  much 
upon  interest  and  concentration.  With  the  substitution 
of  the  oral  for  the  book  method,  reliance  upon  the  memory 
during  the  memory  period  will  permanently  strengthen 
the  child's  power  of  retention."  In  conclusion,  Professor 
Patrick  thinks  that  "To  teach  him  to  speak  and  listen, 
to  observe  and  to  remember,  to  know  something  of  the 
world  about  him  and  instinctively  to  do  the  right  thing, 
will  furnish  more  than  enough  material  for  the  most 
ambitious  elementary  school  curriculum." 

I  have  given  at  such  length  the  opinions  of  these  two 
well-known  writers,  because  they  seem  to  me  to  be  repre- 
sentative of  the  best  modern  thought  upon  the  whole 
matter.  Whatever  the  elementary  school  course  is  to  be, 
when  worked  out  for  our  times,  it  seems  certain  that 
reading  and  writing  are  not  to  be  taught  for  their  own 
sake  in  the  earlier  years;  that  the  work  of  the  new  cur- 
riculum will  gradually  develop  a  natural  desire  to  read, 
and  to  read  for  meanings;  that  it  will  give  own  experi- 
ences which  will  furnish  the  material  for  natural  inter- 
pretation of  suitable  reading-matter;  that  habits  of 
spoken  language  being  well  formed  before  much  reading 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  31 1 

is  attempted,  there  will  be  less  likelihood  of  producing 
mechanical  habits  of  expression,  and  less  danger  to 
speech  habits  from  the  self-dissection  of  phonics,  which, 
after  all,  will  be  given  thoroughly  in  its  own  time. 

However,  while  agreeing  with  Professors  Dewey  and 
Patrick  in  their  belief  that,  eventually,  there  will  be  little  loss 
and  often  much  gain  if  the  child  does  not  read  much  until  his 
eighth  year  or  later,  the  fact  remains  that  at  present  he  is 
expected  to  know  the  rudiments  of  the  art  of  reading  by 
that  time.  It  is  also  a  fact  that  most  children  will  by 
that  time  learn  to  read  tolerably,  of  themselves,  without 
set  lessons  or  formidable  methods,  if  parents  and  teachers 
are  only  shown  how  to  assist,  by  suggestion  and  coopera- 
tion, in  the  plays,  games,  and  other  natural  activities  of 
the  children.  Where  children  have  good  homes,  reading 
will  thus  be  learned  independently  of  school.  Where 
parents  have  not  the  time  or  intelligence  to  assist  in  this 
way,  the  school  may  similarly  develop  the  power  to  read, 
while  making  it  entirely  incidental  to  other  activities. 
In  the  following  chapters  on  learning  to  read  at  home  and 
at  school,  the  writer  gathers  the  best  thought  on  the  sub- 
ject that  has  come  to  him  from  the  study  of  the  psy- 
chology and  history  of  reading  and  from  his  review  of 
earlier  methods  and  the  present-day  practice  #nd  theory. 
The  initial  cue  is  taken  from  the  statement  so  often 
made  by  observing  teachers  that  the  best  readers  learned 
to  read  at  home.  The  school  of  the  future  will  have  as 


312          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

one  of  its  important  duties  the  instruction  of  parents  in 
the  means  of  assisting  the  child's  natural  learning  in  the 
home.  The  school  struggles  strenuously  with  many 
tasks  that  parents  can  accomplish  far  more  naturally  and 
effectively,  if  assisted  a  little.  The  reaction,  too,  upon  the 
parents  themselves  will  be  of  the  greatest  benefit.  I  believe 
that  all  this  is  peculiarly  true  of  the  subject  of  reading. 
In  the  belief  that  there  are  thousands  of  American  homes 
in  which  the  parents  will  delight  to  live  over  again 
with  their  children  the  experiences  of  learning  to  read, 
and  that  such  parents  will  welcome  some  guidance  from 
a  student  of  the  subject,  the  writer's  own  pedagogical  con- 
clusions will  be  given  first  for  the  benefit  of  parents. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

LEARNING  TO  READ  AT  HOME 

PARENTS  who  recall  their  own  primer  experiences  natu- 
rally think  first  of  the  A  B  C's ;  but  having  heard  so  much 
of  modern  word  and  sentence  methods  they  are  confused 
as  to  whether  familiarizing  the  child  with  the  letters  will 
interfere  with  his  reading  later.  It  may  safely  be  said 
that  it  will  not.  A  knowledge  of  the  letter-names  will  of 
course  not  be  needed  for  reading.  Indeed,  one  may 
read  very  well  without  knowing  even  what  sounds  the 
individual  letters  represent.  However,  a  knowledge  of 
the  names  of  the  letters,  and  indeed  of  the  fixed  order  in 
which  they  stand  in  our  alphabet,  becomes  necessary  on 
various  accounts,  for  using  dictionaries,  directories, 
catalogues,  and  for  dozens  of  other  purposes.  There  is 
no  reason  why  the  child  should  not  learn  the  alphabet, 
therefore,  first  as  last,  but  let  him  do  it  only  in  his  play, 
and  as  it  interests  him. 

The  familiar  alphabet  blocks,  with  the  letters  in  colors 
if  preferred,  still  make  capital  playthings.  Tell  him  the 
names  as  he  asks,  and  help  him  to  arrange  them  in  A  B  C 
order  to  match  old  primer  pages  that  may  be  about.  Let 
him  arrange  his  blocks  into  words,  if  this  gives  him  pleas- 

313 


314          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

ure,  and  don't  discourage  his  arranging  them  into  "Gone 
to  Dinner,"  "Evening  Times,"  and  other  phrases  that 
he  sees  and  knows  and  wants  to  imitate.  A  few  centuries 
ago,  as  we  have  seen,  mothers  baked  gingerbread  in  the 
shapes  of  letters,  and  the  child  might  eat  all  he  could 
name.  Perhaps  even  now  pedagogy  would  not  suffer  so 
much  as  stomachs  from  this  practice.  Some  little  ones 
sing  "Yankee  Doodle,"  etc.,  with  the  letters  in  order  for 
words.  Such  plays,  and  better  ones  that  will  occur  to 
many  a  mother,  give  the  child  his  alphabet,  once  the 
terror  of  many  a  child's  early  months  in  school,  and  give 
him  lots  of  fun  besides. 

The  child  makes  endless  questionings  about  the  names 
of  things,  as  every  mother  knows.  He  is  concerned  also 
about  the  printed  notices,  signs,  titles,  visiting  cards,  etc., 
that  come  in  his  way,  and  should  be  told  what  these 
"say"  when  he  makes  inquiry.  It  is  surprising  how 
large  a  stock  of  printed  or  written  words  a  child  will 
gradually  come  to  recognize  in  this  way.  He  should 
simply  be  told  what  the  whole  word  or  phrase  or  sentence 
"says,"  with  no  attention  to  spelling  it  or  dividing  it  into 
words  even,  when  composed  of  several.  Of  course  he 
should  be  shown  what  the  meaning  is,  if  he  does  not  know. 
He  will  come  to  recognize  the  name  of  his  street  when  he 
sees  it  posted  on  a  corner,  and  the  name  of  his  trolley  line, 
grocery  firm,  candy  dealer,  etc.  It  delights  him  to  find 
his  own  name  printed  or  written,  and  that  of  papa  or 


\ 

THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  315 

mamma  or  sister;  and  he  will  play  endless  games  finding 
the  names  he  knows  among  the  advertisements,  in  assort- 
ments of  cards,  on  packages  from  familiar  firms,  etc.  He 
delights  in  distributing  the  mail  to  the  various  members 
of  the  family,  and  thus  learns  all  these  names  and  the 
home  address. 

A  friend  whose  children  know  the  common  birds  has 
charts  containing  pictures  of  these  birds,  in  colors,  in  the 
children's  room,  with  the  name  of  each  bird  printed  large 
below  it.  The  children  soon  know  these  words,  even  though 
nothing  be  said  about  it.  The  Germans  print  very  large 
pictures  of  such  familiar  objects  as  a  turkey  gobbler, 
rooster,  horse,  etc.,  each  picture  occupying  a  full  page, 
with  the  name  printed  large  just  below.  An  atlas  of  some 
thirty  such  pages  presents  words  having  all  the  German 
elementary  sounds,  and  the  child  soon  knows  all  these 
words,  from  seeing  them  constantly  with  the  interesting 
pictures.  This  is  the  basis  of  the  popular  German 
"  Normal  Word  Method, "  in  which  the  child  is  taught,  after 
learning  the  word  as  a  whole  in  this  way,  to  analyze  it 
into  its  elementary  sounds  and  letters,  to  recombine  these, 
etc.  This  analysis,  however,  should  not  be  attempted 
so  early,  but  the  home  should  certainly  have  such  picture 
atlases. 

Another  practice,  adapted  from  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese,  and  used,  with  the  help  of  raised-letter  labels, 
hi  teaching  Laura  Bridgman  to  read,  is  described  in  a 


316  THE    PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

most  interesting  way  in  an  article  in  the  Outlook*  by  Mrs. 
E.  W.  Scripture,  who  used  the  method  successfully  in 
teaching  her  own  child  to  read.  The  nursery  bed,  door, 
windows,  chairs,  etc.,  had  labels  bearing  their  names 
gummed  on  them,  making  the  nursery  look  as  though  it 
had  an  attack  of  measles.  The  child  soon  knew  the 
names  and  wanted  to  make  them.  She  was  given  a 
Japanese  brush  with  bamboo  handle,  ten  inches  long,  and 
made  ink  with  an  India  ink  stick  in  the  Oriental  way. 
She  printed  the  words  large,  one  word  often  filling  a 
whole  sheet,  but  soon  came  to  imitate  the  neatness  of  the 
printed  names.  The  use  of  the  brush  instead  of  the  pen 
or  pencil  allowed  perfect  play  to  all  muscles  of  the  arm, 
the  movements  being  free  from  the  shoulder.  The  child 
should  always  be  encouraged  to  use  these  larger,  more 
fundamental  muscles,  in  the  earlier  years,  in  preference 
to  the  smaller  muscles  that  involve  fine  coordinations. 

When  the  names  of  the  first  labeling  were  pretty  famil- 
iar, these  labels  were  removed,  and  other  objects,  imple- 
ments, etc.,  were  labeled  and  their  riames  thus  learned. 
Then  these  were  removed  and  all  the  labels  were  mixed 
together  and  given  to  the  child  to  be  placed  on  the  object 
whose  name  they  bore.  This  was  great  fun,  and  the  child 
was  soon  familiar  with  a  goodly  number  of  printed  words 
whose  meanings  she  knew  vividly,  and  could  write  them 
as  well.  Of  course  all  this  was  not  reading,  it  was  word 

1  See  Bibliography. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  317 

learning.  But  it  was  a  preparation  which  made  reading 
far  easier  when  it  did  begin  later  in  ways  that  were  just 
as  interesting  and  natural. 

Mrs.  Scripture  printed  the  words  and  had  the  child  print 
them.  The  child,  however,  should  be  accustomed  to  the 
written  forms,  and  these  are  somewhat  easier  to  make ;  but 
the  early  writing  should  be  much  like  printing,  and  in  any 
case  it  is  found  that  the  child  very  soon  learns  to  recognize 
hi  print  any  words  that  he  knows  when  in  plain  script. 
Since  the  transition  is  so  easy,  it  has  become  the  more 
usual  and  more  convenient  practice  to  use  the  script  first. 

And  so  there  are  many  natural  ways  in  which  the  child 
may  become  familiar  with  letters,  words,  and  a  good 
many  phrases  and  sentences,  with  their  meanings. 
The  child  will  be  busy  all  the  day  long,  and  this  is  a  sort 
of  business  that  he  likes,  for  part  of  the  time;  and  if  the 
mother  will  only  help  him  a  little  in  these  ways,  and  play 
with  him,  he  will  accumulate  a  stock  of  words  larger 
than  the  school  would  teach  him  in  the  same  time,  and 
they  are  apt  to  be  better  learned  and  more  useful  ones. 

Real  reading,  of  course,  begins  only  with  the  child's 
getting  the  meaning  of  whole  sentences.  Saying  over  in- 
dividual words  and  recognizing  their  separate  meaning, 
even  when  they  stand  in  a  sentence,  does  not  imply  that 
he  has  gotten  the  sentence's  meaning.  The  latter  is  al- 
ways some  whole  thought,  different  from  the  sum  of  the 
meanings  of  particular  words.  Saying  the  words,  too, 


31 8  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

each  for  itself,  is  very  different  from  saying  the  sentence 
for  its  meaning's  sake,  and  sounds  very  different,  too; 
sounds  wooden,  monotonous,  unnatural.  It  is  very  im- 
portant that  the  child  should  never  practice  merely  pro- 
nouncing words  as  they  occur  in  sentences;  too  often  he 
mistakes  this  for  reading,  and  often  reads  in  this  unnat- 
ural, wooden  fashion  all  his  life.  He  should  always  know 
what  the  whole  sentence  means  or  is  likely  to  mean  before 
attempting  to  say  it,  or  should  at  least  be  trying  to  get  or 
express  a  whole  thought  when  he  pronounces  its  words. 

Many  printed  or  written  sentences  will  be  used  in  his 
plays  and  will  thus  be  read,  especially  if  mamma  will  as- 
sist a  little.  He  may  have  "  Keep  off  the  Grass"  notices  for 
his  play-yard.  He  will  soon  help  visitors  read  his  "Look 
out  for  the  Dog"  sign,  though  he  may  know  no  single 
word  or  letter  of  it.  "Not  at  Home  To-Day,"  or  "Gone 
to  Dinner,"  will  soon  be  familiar,  if  a  part  of  his  play. 
Play  visiting  cards,  invitation  forms,  and  various  begin- 
nings of  written  communication  will  be  demanded  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  playhouse  and  nursery,  and  letter- 
writing  will  often  be  learned  just  as  fast  as  mamma  can 
take  time  to  help  about  it.  Mrs.  Scripture  wrote  letters 
to  her  little  girl,  which  were  delivered  by.  the  postman 
and  "read"  with  avidity.  The  child  is  usually  anxious 
to  help  other  members  of  the  family  read  their  letters,  if 
he  cannot  have  his  own,  and  gradually  comes  to  know 
what  the  sentences  and  words  mean.  A  successful 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING  319 

superintendent  recently  stated  that  letter-writing  was  the 
best  way  to  begin  reading,  even  in  school. 

Mothers  will  be  certain  to  ask  whether  a  primer  is  to  be 
used,  and  what  primer.  Unless  especially  advised  about 
a  choice,  the  primer  should  be  avoided,  except  when  it 
is  to  be  used  merely  as  a  picture  book  or  for  practice  in 
recognizing  words.  It  is  important  that  the  child  avoid 
attempting  to  read  the  sentences  of  even  the  most  modern 
primers,  except  in  the  case  of  a  very  few  indeed.  Almost 
all  the  sentences  are  foreign  to  the  child's  natural  thought 
and  expression,  and  he  can  scarcely  help  reading  them 
in  a  mechanical  fashion  that  comes  to  make  reading  mere 
word -pronouncing.  I  shall  venture  to  mention  a  few 
books  that  in  one  way  or  another  will  be  helpful.  Of 
course  some  equally  good  are  to  be  found. 

Besides  the  large  picture  atlases  already  mentioned, 
such  books  as  the  "Illustrated  Primer"  by  Sarah  Fuller, 
used  in  the  Horace  Mann  School  for  the  Deaf,  give  a  large 
number  of  pictures  of  familiar  objects,  with  the  names 
just  below  each.  These  familiarize  with  words,  and 
other  pictures  show  the  meaning  of  sentences  placed 
below  each.  The  pictures,  being  easy  outline  sketches, 
will  suggest  drawings  that  a  mother  may  make  to  call 
forth  children's  own  sentences  about  the  drawings,  these 
sentences  being  then  written  and  read.  Spears  and  Augs- 
burg's "  Preparing  to  Read  "  is  a  primer  which  is  especially 
rich  in  very  easy  outline  sketches. 


320 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 


A  crutch. 


A  bureau 


ducks 


FIG.  s6.1 


eggs 


1  This  and  the  following  illustration  are  reproduced,  by  permission, 
from  Fuller's  "  Illustrated  Primer."  Copyright,  1898,  by  D.  C.  Heath 
and  Co. 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 


321 


Six  hats  are  on  a 
table. 


Eight  apples  are  on  a 
plate. 


Ten  birds  are  on  a 
tree. 


A  brush  and  a  comb 
are  on  a  table. 


A  horse  and  a  cow  are  in  a  yard. 

FIG.  H. 


322 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 


The  primers  by  F.  Lilian  Taylor  are  full  of  good  sugges- 
tions, especially  for  games  and  exercises  involving  the  read- 
ing of  sentences.  For  instance,  the  child  likes  to  have 
some  one  write  him  directions  for  some  performance  which 
can  only  be  carried  out  when  he  can  read  the  directions; 
such  as  "Point  to  the  clock,"  "Touch  your  cheeks," 
"Bring  me  four  flowers  in  a  glass,"  as  in  Fig.  59,  where 
pictures  are  substituted  for  some  of  the  words. 


•    * 


•    » 


FIG.  58.  —  (From  Taylor.) 

As  the  child  supplies  the  words  for  which  the  pictures 
stand,  these  words  may  be  written  over  the  pictures  and 
thus  learned.  Sometimes  an  envelope  containing  pictures 
and  another  with  the  corresponding  names  of  the  pictures 
are  given  the  child,  to  match  them  in  a  row.  Names  of 
numbers  also  may  be  used,  as  in  Fig.  58. 

The  great  value  of  showing  illustrative  pictures  with  sen- 
tences, aside  from  the  interest  aroused,  is  in  their  making 
the  child  feel  the  sentence's  meaning  as  he  reads  it,  thus 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 


323 


(fcott 


NoTB. — This  page  shows  how  the  use  of  outline  drawings  may  furnish  a 
variety  of  sentences  at  the  time  in  the  progress  of  the  child  when  he  can 
recognize  but  few  words.  Encourage  the  children  to  read  each  sentence  as 
they  would  speak.  Thus:  '  'Roll  a  red  ball  on  a  chair." 

FIG.  59-1 

1  From  "  The  Werner  Primer."  This  and  die  other  cuts  and  quota- 
tions from  "  The  Werner  Primer  "  and  Taylor's  "  First  Reader  "  are 
reproduced  by  permission  of  the  American  Book  Company. 


324 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 


habituating  him   to   reading   with  expression  from  the 
start. 

The  following  cuts  illustrate  this  use  of  pictures,  the 
first  for  single  sentences,  the  second  for  whole  stories. 


Five  flowers 
are  in  a  cup. 


One  spider 
is  in  a  web. 


Four  flies  are  Two  pencils 

on  a  leaf.  are  on  a  book. 

FIG.  60.  —  (From  Taylor's  'The  Werner  Primer.") 

"The  Thought  Reader,"  Book  I,  by  Maud  Summers, 
will  be  found  a  helpful  one,  and  there  are  many  others 
that  will  be  found  suggestive  without  being  used  for  actual 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 


325 


reading.     The  directions   about   phonics   should   all  be 
ignored,  ordinarily,  until  the  child  is  much  older.     The 


FIG.  61.  —  (From  Taylor's  "The  Werner  Primer.") 

Once  a  fly  flying  in  the  sunshine  was  caught  in  a  spider's  web.  The  cruel 
spider,  who  was  watching,  started  to  eat  him.  A  pretty  bird  was  singing  on 
a  tree  near  by.  She  saw  the  poor  fly  and  flew  to  help  him  out.  Some  time 
after  a  hunter  was  trying  to  catch  this  bird  in  a  net.  The  tired  bird  was 
almost  caught  when  the  fly  buzzed  in  the  man's  eyes.  In  brushing  away  the 
fly,  he  dropped  the  net  and  the  bird  flew  away.  This  fable  teaches  that  if  we 
help  others  they  will  help  us. 


326          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

child  should  of  course  be  taught  to  articulate  distinctl) 
and  to  pronounce  correctly,  but  entirely  by  imitation  of 
others;  and  it  is  not  necessary  that  he  should  know  the 
sounds  of  the  individual  letters,  in  his  earlier  reading. 
Analysis  should  not  be  urged  upon  him,  and  he  will  sel- 
dom ask  it,  for  sounds,  until  a  later  period. 

A  book  that  is  useful  in  a  somewhat  different  way  is 
Frank  Beard's  "Bible  Symbols,  or  the  Bible  in  Pictures." 
It  is  made  up  of  Bible  texts  and  stories  with  some  of  the 
words  printed  and  very  many  of  them  replaced  by  pictures, 
large  and  small,  that  suggest  the  omitted  words.  The 
pictures  usually  suggest  enough  of  meaning  to  help  the 
child  guess  the  meaning  of  the  printed  words,  and  his 
knowledge  of  words  grows  apace,  while  the  fact  that  he 
must  always  attend  to  the  meanings  to  get  the  words  de- 
velops reading  for  thought.  The  older  "  Book  of  Puzzles, " 
by  Robert  Merry,  also  has  much  rebus-writing.  Such 
books  of  picture-stories  and  rebuses  represent  the  adult 
writings  of  the  early  times,  in  Egypt  and  indeed  in  most 
countries.  It  is  a  stage  of  reading  and  writing  that  is  a 
natural  one  for  the  child,  and  he  will  make  much  use  of  it 
if  encouraged  a  little. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  child's  early  coming  to  demand 
some  simple  way  of  communicating  in  writing,  as  he  plays 
imitative  games  with  his  little  companions,  and  to  his  early 
interest  in  letters  that  come  to  the  family.  Picture-letters 
are  his  natural  resource,  and  if  mamma  or  nurse  will  join 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 


327 


for  herself,  where  she  may  lay  her  young,,even  tbm'e 


FIG.  62.  —  A  Page  from  Beard's  "The  Bible  in  Pictures." 


328  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

in  the  pictograph  correspondence,  he  will  soon  come  to 
make  much  of  its  possibilities.  If  the  boy  has  been  to  the 
country,  let  him  make  a  picture- story  of  his  experiences, 
to  show  the  family ;  or  he  may  want  to  tell,  in  pictures,  an 
interesting  story  that  has  been  read  to  him.  Objects  that 
are  pictured  often  in  these  picture-letters,  such  as  cat,  horse, 
man,  house,  etc.,  will  soon  be  conventionalized,  as  occurred 
with  the  drawings  of  primitive  man,  into  very  simple  figures 
that  are  quickly  drawn  with  very  few  lines.  For  objects 
that  will  not  simplify  readily  give  him  a  sign,  the  written 
word,  that  may  stand  for  them.  Propose  inventing  a  sign 
I  that  will  always  stand  for  himself,  and  other  word-signs 
that  are  to  stand  for  their  pictures  and  be  a  sort  of  secret 
language  that  other  playmates  may  not  understand,  for 
the  child  takes  a  delight  in  any  sort  of  secret  way  of  talking 
or  writing.  More  and  more  written  words  will  be  needed 
for  the  ideas  that  he  cannot  picture,  and  these  words  will 
be  made  out  as  they  appear  in  letters  that  come  to  him. 
Sometimes  a  picture  dictionary,  Chinese  fashion,  may  be 
given  him,  having  the  written  words  opposite  the  pictures 
that  his  letters  and  stories  are  apt  to  require,  thus  permit- 
ting him  to  use  the  word  or  drawing  as  is  most  convenient. 
The  history  of  reading  and  writing  shows  that  some  of 
the  early  peoples,  notably  the  Egyptians,  long  made  use  of 
this  mixed  writing  in  pictures  and  words. 

Such  writing  and  reading  as  is  suggested  above  will  grow 
gradually  and  naturally  into  main  or  exclusive  use  of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  329 

written  words,  as  the  child  comes,  in  various  ways,  to 
know  more  of  the  latter.  It  is  a  natural  method,  too,  of 
beginning  to  draw,  and  a  method  that  I  am  inclined  to 
think  will  be  more  and  more  used  in  beginning  to  read. 

Thus  far  I  have  said  little  about  the  child's  use  of 
books,  because  I  think  we  should  be  in  no  hurry  to  have 
him  use  them.  The  age  is  over-bookish,  and  bright 
children,  at  least,  are  all  too  soon  possessed  with  a  notion 
which  never  leaves  them  that  all  knowledge  lies  within 
the  covers  of  books.  Reading,  writing,  drawing,  may  be 
learned  and  practiced  in  such  ways  as  I  have  suggested 
and  in  others  that  will  suggest  themselves,  and  may  supply 
all  the  child's  needs  for  years,  without  the  use  of  books. 
Languages,  arithmetic,  geography,  nature,  may  all  be 
studied  effectively,  in  the  early  stages,  with  no  books  other 
than  such  as  the  children  and  teacher  may  make  for  them- 
selves. In  the  schools  of  the  future  books  will  surely  be  but 
little  used  before  the  child's  eighth  or  ninth  year.  In  the 
home  at  present  the  child  should  be  taught  to  read  them 
only  as  early  and  as  fast  as  his  spontaneous  interest  calls 
for  them. 

But  this  interest  in  learning  to  read  books  does  come,  and 
comes  rather  early  and  strongly  to  many  bright  children. 
It  comes  sooner  or  later  to  almost  all  natural  children 
who  see  books  being  used  about  them.  And  here,  I  would 
repeat,  we  have  a  valuable  suggestion  as  to  right  method 
given  us  by  those  children  to  be  found  now  and  then  who 


330  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

learn  to  read  for  themselves,  no  one  knows  how  or  when 
They  grow  into  it  as  they  learned  to  talk,  with  no  special 
instruction  or  purposed  method.  And  usually  such  readers 
are  the  best  and  most  natural  readers  of  all. 

The  natural  method  of  learning  to  read  is  just  the  same 
as  that  of  learning  to  talk.  It  is  the  method  of  imitation. 
Consider  for  a  moment  how  speech  is  learned.  The 
infant  is  born  into  an  environment  of  spoken  language. 
He  long  hears  the  sentences  without  grasping  their  mean- 
ings, and  babbles  forth  all  the  sounds  of  letters  and  sylla- 
bles without  expressing  any  meanings.  But  gradually  and 
with  no  confusion,  without  "special  methods  and  devices," 
he  catches  glimpses  of  meaning  in  what  is  said,  a  little 
here  and  there,  and  not  troubling  about  the  still  obscure 
parts,  —  getting  the  general  drift  of  what  is  said  first  and 
the  finer  distinctions  as  time  goes  on.  He  repeats  con- 
tinually what  he  hears,  and  uses  it  with  the  meanings 
which  seemed  to  attach  to  it  from  the  speaker's  tones  and 
actions  and  the  attendant  circumstances.  So  with  little 
friction  or  trouble  he  comes  to  understand  all  that  is  said 
to  him  and  to  say  all  that  he  has  to  say.  Spoken  language 
is  not  inherited,  and  he  learns  it  all  for  himself  in  this 
simple  fashion. 

•  Just  so,  a  few  years  later,  he  finds  that  he  is  in  an  envi- 
ronment of  books,  papers,  notices,  printed  language,  as 
omnipresent  as  was  the  spoken  language.  All  of  it  has, 
at  first,  as  little  meaning  as  had  the  spoken  sentences,  and 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  331 

his  scribbling  is  as  little  like  writing  or  printing  as  his  early 
babble  was  like  speech.  But  he  begins  to  be  interested  in 
these  printed  and  written  things,  and  to  imitate ;  and  the 
steps  from  this  to  facile  reading  and  writing  are  as  certain 
and  as  natural  as  were  the  earlier  ones  for  spoken  language. 

Note  what  happens  in  the  case  of  the  child  who  goes 
about  naturally  in  a  library  where  there  are  books  suitable 
to  his  age.  There  is  a  natural  growth  in  his  acquaintance 
with  them.  He  first  comes  to  know  the  books  or  period- 
icals that  have  pictures  or  stories  in  them.  He  distin- 
guishes these  from  the  others  by  their  size,  shape,  color  of 
cover,  etc.,  and  brings  the  right  one.  Then,  as  father  reads 
to  him  from  the  favorite  book,  he  looks  on  at  the  pictures 
and  comes  to  know  the  parts  of  the  book  that  contain 
special  ones.  He  gets  to  know,  too,  the  parts  in  which  the 
most  delightful  stories  are  found,  and  turns  to  these  and 
begs  to  have  them  read.  The  very  page  of  certain  favor- 
ite starting-points  comes  to  be  accurately  located.  Thus 
he  gradually  comes  to  a  familiarity,  in  the  large,  with 
some  books  and  their  contents.  When  no  one  will  read 
to  him,  he  often  takes  one  of  his  books  to  a  corner  and 
"reads,"  improvising  a  story,  or  perhaps  only  babbling, 
but  "taking  off,"  the  best  he  can,  the  reading  that  he  has 
heard. 

Some  of  the  jingles  and  stories  read  to  him  become  so 
familiar  that  he  knows  them  throughout.  He  will  often 
ask,  "Where  does  it  say  Jack,"  and  "Where  is  Mother 


332  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

Hubbard ; "  and  looking  on  as  mamma  points,  he  learns 
where  various  sentences  and  words  occur  on  the  page.  He 
wants  to  know  what  it  "says"  here  and  what  there,  and 
comes  to  point,  with  mamma,  to  the  right  place  as  the  read- 
ing goes  on.1  So,  almost  as  naturally  as  the  sun  shines,  in 
these  sittings  on  the  parent's  knee,  he  comes  to  feel  and  to 
say  the  right  parts  of  the  story  or  rhyme  as  his  eye  and 
finger  travel  over  the  printed  lines,  and  all  the  earlier  and 
more  certainly  if  illustrative  pictures  are  placed  hard  by  to 
serve  as  landmarks. 

The  secret  of  it  all  lies  in  parents'  reading  aloud  to  and 
with  the  child.  To  illustrate,  the  writer  recalls  a  recent 
holiday  experience  with  a  little  four-year-old  boy  who 
had  never  tried  to  read,  but  who  had  a  new  pictured  story- 
book which  contained  lines  about  Old  Mother  Hubbard. 
He  knew  the  story  already,  but  had  me  read  it  aloud  over 
and  over  again,  following  my  finger  over  the  lines  and  also 
keeping  the  place  by  the  pictures.  He  would  then  "read " 
it  by  turns  with  me,  and  actually  came  to  keep  his  finger 
"on  the  place"  throughout,  at  the  first  sitting.  All  that 
is  needed  is  books  of  good  old  jingles  and  rhymes  and  folk 
stories  and  fairy  tales,  with  illustrative  pictures,  and  a 
mother  or  father  or  friend  who  cares  enough  for  children 
to  play  this  way  and  to  read  aloud  to  them.  The  child  will 

1  This  method  has  already  been  stated,  in  essentials,  by  Miss  Iredell, 
in  an  article  in  "Education,"  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  233-238,  entitled,  "How 
Eleanor  Learns  to  Read." 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  333 

keep  it  up  by  the  hour  and  the  week  and  the  month,  and 
his  natural  learning  to  read  is  only  a  question  of  time. 
He  comes  to  know  from  memory  a  great  many  jingles  and 
songs  and  stories,  and  reading  comes  the  more  easily  foi 
these.  Miss  Taylor  and  others  of  the  best  primer  writers 
advise  much  of  such  memorizing,  though  of  course  it  is 
best  done  involuntarily,  by  listening  to  the  readings  and 
imitating.  The  child  likes  to  hear  good  things  repeated 
over  and  over  again,  and  when  but  a  part  is  read  to  him 
he  will  read  the  rest  for  himself.  He  likes,  too,  to  sing 
his  favorite  songs  along  with  mamma,  from  the  printed 
page,  and  learns  to  read  these  readily  in  this  way. 

It  may  be  said  that  in  all  this  he  is  but  learning  to  read 
that  with  which  he  is  already  familiar,  and  has  acquired 
but  little  power  to  read  new  matter.  But  after  such  prac- 
tice has  gone  on  for  some  time  mothers  will  be  surprised 
to  find  how  many  new  jingles  and  stories  he  makes  out  for 
himself,  with  the  help  of  the  pictures  and  stray  suggestions 
that  he  picks  up,  and  how  interested  he  is  in  making  them 
out.  He  has  acquired  familiarity  with  most  of  the  printed 
words  used  in  child  language,  and  he  meets  these  in  the 
new  story ;  they  help  him  conjecture  what  the  new  words 
must  be,  and  he  enlarges  his  vocabulary  for  himself  by 
the  use  of  the  context,  just  as  he  did  earlier  in  learning 
spoken  language.  None  of  us  need  hear  or  see  more  than 
half  or  two-thirds  of  what  is  spoken  or  printed  in  order 
to  get  the  general  meaning  of  nearly  all.  Just  so  the 


334          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

acquisition  of  power  over  new  reading-matter  comes 
naturally,  by  this  method,  provided  the  new  matter  be 
well  within  the  child's  natural  comprehension  and  interest ; 
and  he  should  not  be  encouraged  or  expected  to  read  matter 
that  is  not. 

Of  course  there  comes  a  time  when  phonics  should  be 
taught,  and  carefully  taught,  but  that  task  may  well  be  left  to 
the  school.  Besides,  the  child  should  long  continue  to  hear 
far  more  reading  than  he  does  for  himself.  The  ear  and  not 
the  eye  is  the  nearest  gateway  to  the  child-soul,  if  not  indeed 
to  the  man-soul.  Oral  work  is  certain  to  displace  much  of 
the  present  written  work  in  the  school  of  the  future,  at 
least  in  the  earlier  years;  and  at  home  there  is  scarcely 
a  more  commendable  and  useful  practice  than  that  of 
reading  much  of  good  things  aloud  to  the  children.  Scud- 
der,  in  his  "Childhood  in  Literature  and  Art,"  says  there 
is  no  academy  on  earth  that  can  compare  with  this  practice. 
Thinking  the  same  subject  together  gives  a  bond  of  union 
which  binds  the  family  together;  and  the  most  blessed 
memories  of  many  of  us  cluster  about  the  spell  which  held 
us  as  we  listened  time  and  again  to  mother  or  father  or 
grandparent  reading  in  the  dear  familiar  voice. 

As  to  choice  of  reading  matter,  there  is  no  better  guide 
than  the  perennial  interest  of  childhood  itself,  which  has 
voted  its  preference  for  Mother  Goose  and  other  such  old 
and  well-tried  jingles  and  rhymes,  to  start  with.  These 
and  the  great  old  myths  and  folk  tales,  Teuton  and  Greek, 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING  335 

are  the  rightful  heritage  of  every  child ;  likewise  the  Old 
Testament  Bible  stories,  or  such  adaptations  of  them  as 
are  given,  for  example,  by  Felix  Adler  in  his  "  Moral  Instruc- 
tion of  Children."  The  old  songs  and  ballads,  and  later 
the  tales  of  heroes  and  adventurers,  the  best  collections  of 
animal  stories  told  by  writers  who  know  their  animals,  even 
poems  and  stories  that  are  somewhat  beyond  the  child's 
full  comprehension,  provided  he  likes  them  and  calls  for 
them,  —  there  is  a  wealth  of  thife  material  which  our 
librarians  will  advise  with  mothers  about.  Care  should  be 
taken  to  give  the  children  the  very  best,  and  from  the 
start.  The  tons  of  trash  that  are  annually  sold,  on  the 
theory  that  it  doesn't  matter  what  the  young  child  reads, 
are  robbing  the  children  of  the  chastening  influence  of 
real  child  classics ;  which  after  all  he  himself  prefers  even 
in  the  start,  and  which  do  much  to  lay  in  him  the  founda- 
tions of  correct  literary  taste  as  well  as  of  right  ideals 
of  life  and  conduct. 


CHAPTER  XVH 

LEARNING  TO  READ  AT  SCHOOL.   THE  EARLY  PERIOD 

MOST  children  will  doubtless  continue  to  be  started  to 
school  at  the  age  of  six,  although  a  good  home  is  usually  a 
better  place  for  them  until  eight  years  of  age,  provided 
parents  can  give  them  a  little  time  every  day  and  can  have 
proper  instructions  about  assisting  with  home  learning.  But 
many  parents  do  not  have  the  time  or  the  intelligence,  and 
the  schools  are  not  yet  prepared  to  assist  them  effectively. 

In  any  case,  whether  at  school  or  at  home,  the  young 
child  is  to  be  occupied  mainly  with  quite  other  matters  than 
formal  exercises  in  learning  to  read,  until  his  eighth  year 
at  least.  The  articles  by  Professors  Patrick  and  Dewey 
suggest  the  natural  bases  of  a  school  course  for  this  early 
period,  dominated  as  it  should  be  by  oral  rather  than  by 
printed  and  written  work,  full  of  good  literature  and 
history  suited  to  this  early  age,  but  given  fresh  from  the 
lips  of  the  enthusiastic  teacher  and  talked  over  with  the 
children,  as  the  best  means  of  forming  right  habits  of  Eng- 
lish expression  while  deepening  the  culture  value  of  the 
context.  Real  acquaintanceship  with  outdoor  nature 
without  too  much  of  adult  sentiment,  well-directed  muscu- 
lar development  in  free  play  and  in  manual  work,  singing, 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  337 

illustrative  drawing,  picture-writing,  perhaps  some  con- 
versational work  in  a  foreign  language,  these  and  other 
activities  suited  to  this  stage  of  the  child's  development 
will  make  the  school  session  a  wholesome  delight  instead 
of  a  burden,  to  child  and  teacher  alike. 

The  child  has  not  at  this  stage  developed  the  logical 
and  ideational  habits  that  most  printed  language  demands, 
any  more  than  had  primitive  man  when  he  used  picto- 
graphs  and  gestures.  Let  the  child  linger  then  in  the  oral 
stage,  and  let  him  use  the  primitive  means  of  expression 
and  communication  as  he  likes  to  do ;  this  at  least  until 
we  have  developed  a  body  of  genuine  child  reading-matter. 
He  must  not,  by  reading  adult  grammatical  and  logical 
forms,  be  exercised  in  mental  habits  that  will  violate  his 
childhood  and  make  him,  at  the  best,  a  prig.  Doubtless 
this  early  primary  course  of  study  should  vary  much,  accord- 
ing to  the  community  and  the  station  in  life  of  the  children. 
It  presents  a  problem  to  be  worked  out  in  part,  then,  by 
each  city  and  region,  for  itself.  Helpful  suggestions  will  be 
found  in  various  writings  by  the  authors  just  mentioned, 
also  in  articles  appearing  from  time  to  time  in  the  Elementary 
School  Teacher,  in  the  article  by  Professor  E.  B.  Bryan 
on  "Nascent  Stages,"  published  in  the  Pedagogical  Semi- 
nary, Vol.  VII,  in  Professor  Search's  book  on  "The  Ideal 
School,"  etc. 

However,  as  quite  incidental  to  the  main  activities  of 
the  school,  I  believe  that  reading  may  gradually  be  learned 


338  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

during  these  early  years  without  harm  to  the  child  and 
with  better  results  than  when  made  an  end  in  itself.  Most 
of  the  means  suggested  as  available  for  his  learning  to  read 
at  home  are  also  possible  in  his  school  life.  His  ability 
to  recognize  printed  words  will  grow  steadily  as  he  deals 
with  notices,  signs,  labels,  and  names  printed  with  pictures 
that  interest  him,  in  charts  and  books.  The  written  names 
of  all  schoolmates  and  teachers  will  soon  be  familiar  if 
used  in  the  school  activities.  Letter-writing,  as  advised 
by  Professor  Chadwick  in  the.  New  York  Teachers1 
Monographs  for  June,  1902,  will  be  much  enjoyed,  using 
pictures  where  the  words  fail,  and  will  gradually  familiar- 
ize with  sentences.  Indeed  drawing,  used  as  a  means 
of  relating  the  child's  experiences  and  thoughts,  becomes 
a  language  which  most  naturally  leads  to  writing  and  to 
reading,  by  gradual  substitution  of  the  more  convenient 
word-forms,  as  already  suggested.  It  is  necessary,  of 
course,  for  this  early  drawing,  that  the  child  have  entire 
freedom  hi  the  choice  of  what  he  shall  draw  and  indeed 
of  how  he  shall  draw  it,  although  good  taste  and  good 
execution  may  be  encouraged  from  the  first. 

The  history  of  the  languages  in  which  picture-writing 
was  long  the  main  means  of  written  communication  has 
here  a  wealth  of  suggestion  for  the  framers  of  the  new  pri- 
mary course.  It  is  not  from  mere  perversity  that  the  boy 
chalks  or  carves  his  records  on  book  and  desk  and  walls 
and  school  fences,  nor  from  chance  that  a  picture-book  is 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  339 

of  all-absorbing  interest.  There  is  here  a  correspondence 
with,  if  not  a  direct  recapitulation  of,  the  life  of  the  race ; 
and  we  owe  it  to  the  child  to  encourage  his  living  through 
the  best  there  is  in  this  pictograph  stage  as  a  means  both  of 
expression  and  impression,  before  we  pass  on  to  the  race's 
late  acquirements  of  written  speech  and  phonic  analysis. 

The  activities  of  the  school  life  will  naturally  create  a 
need  for  making  certain  records  of  what  is  done,  and  a  need 
for  reading  these  records.  Records  of  the  weather,  of  the 
growth  of  plants,  of  attendance  and  proficiency,  if  made 
with  the  assistance  of  the  children,  will  soon  be  read  and 
used  by  them.  In  such  ways,  reading  and  writing  may 
be  made  to  grow  as  naturally  and  as  fast  as  the  other  ex- 
periences of  the  child,  and  will  only  be  used  as  needed. 
The  articles  by  Miss  Cooke  are  more  lucid  than  any  fur- 
ther directions  that  I  could  give  concerning  the  use  of  this 
method.  It  is  a  perfectly  proper  and  natural  method,  and 
one  that  has  shown  itself  entirely  feasible  in  the  practice 
of  schools  in  Chicago.  The  children  readily  learn  to  read 
such  records  of  their  own  experience,  without  any  par- 
ticular "method";  and  if  the  accounts,  whether  written 
or  printed,  are  preserved  and  bound  together,  they  make 
excellent  "Readers"  which  the  children  read  with  natural 
expression  and  with  much  interest. 

Miss  Jessie  R.  Smith,  of  the  Santa  Rosa,  California, 
Schools,  has  published  two  little  volumes  of  such  children's 
Readers,  "practically  written  by  children."  I  quote 


34°  THE   PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

from  Professor  Burk's  preface  to  one  of  these  Readers, 
"The  Story  of  Washington,"  and  reproduce  part  of  the 
first  story.  An  illustration  of  this  story,  by  one  of  the 
older  children,  has  been  shown  on  an  earlier  page.1 

"The  method  of  the  book's  production  has  been  as  follows :  she  first 
related  to  her  pupils,  who  were  from  seven  to  nine  years  of  age,  the 
story  of  the  hero  in  the  best  form  her  instincts  could  dictate.  Some  days 
later,  after  the  story,  its  form  of  presentation,  and  language  have  some- 
what "settled"  in  the  children's  minds,  she  has  called  for  reproduc- 
tions, both  oral  and  in  written  form,  allowing  the  pupils  also  to  illus- 
trate their  written  work  in  any  way  they  pleased.  She  has  then  made 
these  reproductions  the  material  for  most  careful  study  as  to  essential 
elements  of  plot,  salient  points  of  interest,  and  especially  the  words  and 
forms  of  expression  used  by  the  children.  By  this  means  the  story 
has  been  reconstructed.  Portions  over  which  the  children  love  to 
linger  are  brought  out  to  the  fullest  extent.  Their  words  and  forms 
of  language,  within  the  limit  of  grammatical  usage,  are  followed 
scrupulously.  Much  care  has  been  used  to  keep  the  stories  within  a 
limited  vocabulary.  Less  than  750  different  words  are  used  in  the 
entire  series,  and  these,  excepting  the  necessary  geographical  names 
are  all  of  the  commonest  use  among  children." 

THE  STORY  OF  WASHINGTON. 

WASHINGTON  AS   A  BOY. 

When  George  Washington  was  a  little  boy,  he  lived  in  Virginia. 
His  home  was  near  the  Potomac  River. 

George  had  a  big  brother  named  Laurence. 

Laurence  was  a  soldier,  and  he  told  George  fine  stories.  George 
wanted  to  be  soldier,  too.  But  Laurence  said:  "You  are  too  small. 
You  must  wait  until  you  are  a  man." 

1  The  selections  and  illustration  are  reproduced  by  permission  of 
E.  H.  Hanson,  publisher,  New  York. 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  341 

George  did  not  like  that.  He  said:  "I  want  to  be  a  soldier  right 
now." 

So  he  played  with  the  boys  at  school.  At  recess,  he  would  get  his 
sword  and  call:  "Fall  in  !  Fall  in  !" 

Then  the  boys  would  run  and  get  in  line.  They  would  march 
up  and  down  the  road. 

The  boys  thought  this  was  great  fun. 

Sometimes  they  would  have  a  battle.  One  side  had  cornstalks 
and  the  other  side  had  broomsticks  for  guns.  George  was  the  best 
captain,  and  his  side  always  won. 

The  following  selection  is  from  "  Old  Time  Stories  Re- 
told by  Children, "  a  Reader  compiled  somewhat  similarly 
by  E.  Louise  Smith,  of  the  Santa  Rosa  Schools. 

THE  APPLES  OF  IDUN.1 

Once  upon  a  time  three  of  the  gods  went  on  a  journey. 

One  was  Thor  and  one  was  Loki.     Loki  was  ugly  and  mean. 

The  gods  liked  to  walk  over  the  hills  and  rocks.  They  could  go 
very  fast  for  they  were  so  big. 

The  gods  walked  on  and  on. 

At  last  they  got  very  hungry.     Then  they  came  to  a  field  with  cattle. 

Thor  killed  a  big  ox  and  put  the  pieces  into  a  pot. 

They  made  a  big  fire  but  the  meat  would  not  cook.  They  made 
the  fire  bigger  and  bigger,  but  the  meat  would  not  cook. 

Then  the  gods  were  very  cross. 

The  children's  reproductions  of  the  stories  were  at 
first  typewritten  or  mimeographed,  and  were  read  in  this 
form.  They  are,  of  course,  all  the  more  pleased  to  read 
their  stories  when  printed. 

It  is,  of  course,  just  as  natural  to  discuss  with  the  children 

1  Reproduced  by  permission  of  American  BQO^  Cqrn.pany. 


342  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

an  interesting  drawing  upon  the  blackboard,  and  to  write 
and  read  with  them  the  statements  that  they  make  about  the 
objects  drawn.  This  blackboard  sentence  method  is  always 
enjoyed  by  the  children,  and  fast  increases  their  vocabulary 
and  their  familiarity  with  phrases  and  sentences  that  are 
in  common  use.  Miss  Margaret  Wheaton  describes  and 
illustrates  this  method  in  a  very  intelligible  fashion  in  the 
New  York  Teachers1  Monographs  for  November,  1898. 

Miss  Maud  Summers,  in  her  suggestive  beginners'  book, 
"The  Thought  Reader,"  Book  I,  emphasizes  the  impor- 
tance of  children's  doing  much  of  this  early  blackboard- 
reading  silently,  and  urges  that  when  there  is  reproduction 
aloud,  it  should  not  necessarily  be  in  the  exact  words  that  are 
upon  the  board.  Thus  the  children  in  the  very  beginning 
of  reading  come  to  think  of  it  as  the  getting  or  giving  of 
thought  from  what  is  written,  rather  than  as  the  naming 
of  certain  written  words.  Miss  Summers  argues  that 
silent  reading,  in  any  case,  is  the  "necessity,  oral  reading 
a  desirable  accomplishment."  Colonel  Parker,  in  his 
"Talks  on  Pedagogics,"  argues  that  "the  custom  of  mak- 
ing oral  reading  the  principal  and  almost  the  only  means 
of  teaching  reading  has  led  to  the  many  errors  prevalent 
to-day."  "Oral  reading,"  he  considers,  "is  a  mode  of 
expression,  and  comes  under  the  head  of  speech."  "The 
serious  fault  in  the  teaching  of  reading  consists  in  making 
oral  reading  an  end  in  itself."  Instead  of  this,  the  aim 
should  be  "to  enhance  thought"  in  the  mind  of  the  reader, 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  343 

for  "reading  is  thinking."  We  should  of  course  keep  in 
mind  that  most  of  the  child's  thinking  is  in  speech  or  in  ac- 
tions, and  that  he  will  not  inhibit  these  for  very  long  if  left 
to  himself.  But  the  practice  of  trying  to  get  the  meaning 
before  stating  it,  and  of  stating  it  in  the  reader's  own  way 
and  even  in  his  own  words,  is  most  valuable  in  throwing 
the  emphasis  upon  thought-getting,  and  is  fundamental 
to  securing  natural  expression  in  oral  reading. 

Sarah  Louise  Arnold,  in  her  "  Waymarks  for  Teachers," 
also  emphasizes  the  importance  of  much  silent  reading, 
considering  it  a  most  helpful  exercise,  for  instance,  to 
question  the  children  upon  the  subject-matter  in  such  a 
way  as  to  necessitate  their  reading  silently  before  replying. 
She  opposes  concert-reading,  as  tending  away  from  the 
naturalness  of  silent  or  individual  reading.  "The  bright 
child  or  the  loud-voiced  boy  leads,  the  others  waiting  to 
follow.  The  result  is  a  dragging  chant  which  has  in  it 
neither  life  nor  thought,  and  which  effectually  prevents 
the  natural  and  easy  expression  which  should  be  culti- 
vated in  all  the  lessons." 

Miss  Summers  would  have  the  children  sometimes  read 
by  acting  the  thought  of  what  is  written,  as  in  reading 
such  sentences  as  "Hop,  skip,  and  jump;"  "Hop  to  me;" 
"Sing;"  "Run  around  the  room;"  "Toss  the  bran- 
bag;"  "Form  a  circle,"  etc.  "The  Primer  of  Work  and 
Play,"  by  Edith  G.  Alger,  also  suggests  much  of  this 
reading  by  actions. 


344  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

Miss  Taylor  finds  that  the  "silent  reading  and  obey- 
ing of  written  directions  .  .  .  holds  the  attention  of 
a  primary  school,"  and  her  primers  suggest  much  of 
this  work,  especially  games  and  plays  that  involve 
silent  reading,  as  in  the  example  below.  She  also 
suggests  making  picture  accounts  of  what  is  read,  and 

Will  you  come  and  play  with  me? 
"We  will  take   four  red  sticks 
and  make  a  square. 


Make .  a 


with  blue  sticks. 


Make  a  table  with  yellow  sticks. 
Lay   a  star  with   orange  sticks. 
Lay  seven   purple   sticks  in  a  row. 


Make  a    |       |    with  yellow  sticks. 

•  i  i  i  r"j 

I  have  made  a   IN      I    and  a 


NOTE. — Each  child  should  be  provided  with.au  envelope  containing  sticks 
of  different  lengths  and  colors.  One  color  only  should  be  used  in  each  design. 
Let  the  directions  on  this,  page  be  obeyed  silently  for  occupation  work  before 
reading. 

FIG.  63.  —  (From  F.  Lilian  Taylor's  "The  Werner  Primer."     By  permission 
of  American  Book  Company.) 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF   READING  345 

this  interpretative  drawing  is  commended  by  many  good 
teachers  and  writers.  The  Werner  Primer  has  much 
of  suggestion  on  correlating  early  thought-reading  with 
drawing  and  with  the  general  school  activities,  and  the 
book  aims  at  developing  silent  reading  before  oral. 

In  these  various  ways,  the  power  to  read  what  the  child 
really  has  need  of  reading,  in  the  actual  life  at  school,  will 
be  gaining  steadily,  without  any  forcing  or  technique  of 
method.  He  will  pronounce  correctly  what  he  reads 
because  he  will  read  the  speech  of  everyday  life,  his  abun- 
dant conversation  lessons  having  habituated  him  to  correct 
use  of  such  a  vocabulary.  New  words  will  first  be  used 
orally  and  will  be  written  as  used,  giving  acquaintance 
with  their  forms  as  wholes.  No  phonics  will  then  be 
needed  to  suggest  them,  nor  to  correct  mispronunciations ; 
for  when  the  meaning  is  mainly  thought  of  in  reading, 
the  correct  pronunciation  of  everyday  speech  will  always 
prevail. 

But  the  power  to  read  will  be  growing,  during  all  this 
time,  in  a  somewhat  different  way,  through  the  school 
exercises  in  literature.  The  study  of  literature  should 
certainly  begin  with  the  pupil's  first  day  in  school,  and  his 
inability  to  read  will  be  rather  in  favor  of  successful  in- 
troductory work  in  this  subject.  The  rhymes,  jingles, 
and  classic  child  poems  and  stories  presented  in  such 
books  as  Williams'  "Choice  Literature,"  or  the  "Heart  of 
Oak"  introductory  reader,  will  be  listened  to  with  won- 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

der  and  rapt  attention  when  told  or  read  aloud  by  the 
teacher,  and  will  bear  repeating  many  times  until  many 
of  them  will  be  known  throughout  by  all  the  children. 
There  need  be  no  hurry  to  have  them  read  for  themselves, 
as  the  teacher's  story-telling  and  reading  to  them  will  long 
continue  to  be  the  more  effective  medium  for  teaching  the 
literature,  just  as  it  was  in  the  old  Greek  days.  However, 
if  the  children  are  supplied  with  the  books,  they  will  de- 
light to  follow  along  with  the  teacher  in  the  readings, 
especially  if  abundant  illustrations  help  them  to  keep  the 
place.  Sometimes  the  teacher's  copy  is  a  chart  which  all 
can  see,  following  the  pointer  or  pictures  as  the  reading 
progresses,  thus  becoming  familiar  with  the  printed  sen- 
tences, phrases,  and  words. 

Once  children  know  a  poem  or  a  story,  it  is  surprising 
how  quickly  they  can  locate  its  parts  on  the  printed  page, 
and  read  it.  Accordingly,  in  the  books  by  Miss  Taylor, 
Miss  Arnold,  and  other  successful  primer  writers,  teachers 
are  urged  to  make  much  of  memorizing  poems,  especially, 
as  an  excellent  means  of  learning  to  read.  Songs  are 

V 

readily  learned  and  read  in  this  way.  There  is  no  need, 
usually,  of  assigning  such  learning  as  a  special  task.  If 
the  oral  work  is  well  done,  and  if  there  is  as  much  of  it  as 
there  should  be,  the  choicest  things  in  the  classics  for 
children  will  work  their  own  way  into  their  memories; 
and  the  intrinsic  pleasure  of  recognition  is  well  illustrated 
in  the  delight  which  children  take  in  matching  these 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  347 

memories  with  what  they  can  find  in  the  selection  as 
printed.  Miss  Mary  E.  Burt's  recent  book,  "  Poems  that 
Every  Child  Should  Know,"  contains  an  admirable  se- 
lection of  these  classics.  The  children  will  often  like  to 
read  their  favorite  pieces  aloud,  largely  from  memory 
at  first,  but  using  more  and  more  cues  from  the 
printed  page.  These  readings  aloud  should  always  be 
from  what  is  already  quite  familiar.  Miss  Arnold  rightly 
insists  on  the  reading  of  much  that  is  easy  at  first,  rather 
than  hurrying  on  to  the  unfamiliar  with  the  stumbling 
and  hesitation  and  mechanical  procedure  that  come  from 
the  latter  practice. 

It  should  constantly  be  remembered  that  there  is  no 
need  of  hurrying  the  young  child  into  the  ability  to  read 
every  kind  of  printed  matter  at  sight.  The  premature 
possession  of  this  power  is  in  itself  a  temptation  to  use  it 
with  matter  that  is  wholly  unnatural  and  unfitted  for  the 
child,  and  sprouts  the  insidious  thought  of  reading  as  a 
formal  end  in  itself.  His  reading  vocabulary  should  grow 
mainly  from  his  daily  varying  and  developing  needs  of  self- 
expression,  in  the  social  activities  of  the  school.  What- 
ever the  children  write  for  each  other's  use,  either  in 
pictures  or  words,  will  be  quickly  read ;  and  new  matter, 
whether  a  story  of  bear-hunting  or  directions  about  mak- 
ing the  new  kind  of  kite,  will  be  pretty  promptly  made 
out  if  it  appeals  to  an  actual  own  interest,  and  the  new 
written  forms  will  be  added  to  the  child's  vocabulary. 


348  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

Matter  which  does  not  make  such  appeal  will  long  be  read 
with  difficulty  and  will  demand  phonics  and  special 
methods.  But  the  remedy  is  simple,  for  such  matter 
should  not  be  read,  its  very  difficulty  being  the  child's 
natural  protection  against  what  he  is  as  yet  unfitted  for. 

In  any  case  new  words  are  best  learned  by  hearing  or 
seeing  them  used  in  a  context  that  suggests  their  meaning, 
and  not  by  focusing  the  attention  upon  their  isolated  form 
or  sound  or  meaning.  It  should  constantly  be  remembered 
that  words  are  functional,  and  that  their  main  function  is 
to  help  express  a  total  meaning  which  always  requires 
or  implies  their  association  together  with  other  words. 
If  the  word  must  be  learned  in  isolation,  it  should  always 
be  thought  of  as  saying  something  of  a  total  thought. 
But  their  most  natural  and  real  meanings  dawn  upon  the 
reader  as  he  feels  the  part  that  is  left  for  them  to  take  in 
the  various  contexts  in  which  they  occur.  The  best  way 
to  get  a  reading  vocabulary  is  just  the  way  that  the  child 
gets  his  spoken  vocabulary,  by  having  the  new  words  keep 
coming  in  a  context  environment  that  is  familiar  and  inter- 
esting, and  by  trying  to  use  them  as  they  will  serve  his 
purposes.  It  is  contrary  to  all  natural  processes  of  learn- 
ing to  insist  on  precise  and  focalized  knowledge  of  mean- 
ings and  functions  before  the  more  general  use-knowledge 
has  paved  the  way  and  given  the  material  for  reflection. 

It  is  not  indeed  necessary  that  the  child  should  be  able 
to  pronounce  correctly  or  pronounce  at  all,  at  first,  the 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  349 

new  words  that  appear  in  his  reading,  any  more  than  that 
he  should  spell  or  write  all  the  new  words  that  he  hears 
spoken.  If  he  grasps,  approximately,  the  total  meaning 
of  the  sentence  in  which  the  new  word  stands,  he  has  read 
the  sentence.  Usually  this  total  meaning  will  suggest  what 
to  call  the  new  word,  and  the  word's  correct  articulation  will 
usually  have  been  learned  in  conversation,  if  the  proper 
amount  of  oral  practice  shall  have  preceded  reading.  And 
even  if  the  child  substitutes  words  of  his  own  for  some  that 
are  on  the  page,  provided  that  these  express  the  meaning, 
it  is  an  encouraging  sign  that  the  reading  has  been  real, 
and  recognition  of  details  will  come  as  it  is  needed.  The 
shock  that  such  a  statement  will  give  to  many  a  practical 
teacher  of  reading  is  but  an  accurate  measure  of  the  hold 
that  a  false  ideal  has  taken  of  us,  viz.,  that  to  read  is  to  say 
just  what  is  upon  the  page,  instead  of  to  think,  each  in  his 
own  way,  the  meaning  that  the  page  suggests.  Inner  say- 
ing there  will  doubtless  always  be,  of  some  sort ;  but  not  a 
saying  that  is,  especially  in  the  early  reading,  exactly 
parallel  to  the  forms  upon  the  page.  It  may  even  be 
necessary,  if  the  reader  is  to  really  tell  what  the  page  sug- 
gests, to  tell  it  in  words  that  are  somewhat  variant ;  for 
reading  is  always  of  the  nature  of  translation  and,  to  be 
truthful,  must  be  free.  Both  the  inner  utterance  and 
reading  aloud  are  natural  in  the  early  years  and  are  to  be 
encouraged,  but  only  when  left  thus  free,  to  be  dominated 
only  by  the  purpose  of  getting  and  expressing  meanings; 


350  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

and  until  the  insidious  thought  of  reading  as  word-pro- 
nouncing is  well  worked  out  of  our  heads,  it  is  well  to  place 
the  emphasis  strongly  where  it  really  belongs,  on  reading  as 
thought-getting,  independently  of  expression. 

It  is  wise  that  reading  should  be  rather  rapid  from  the 
first,  —  that  is,  that  the  particular  sentences  should  be 
thought  at  the  child's  ordinary  rate  of  thinking  and  feeling. 
Much  halting  over  the  meaning  and  utterance  of  particular 
forms  prevents  this  natural  movement  of  thought  and 
feeling  and  injures  the  habits  of  thinking  as  well  as  of 
reading.  It  is  encouraging  to  find  Professor  Ward  and 
others  of  our  influential  teachers  of  reading  insisting  on 
the  maintenance  of  a  natural  rate  in  the  early  reading; 
though  many  of  the  teachers  to  whom  Professor  James' 
appellation  of  "bottled  lightning"  seems  apt  need  to  learn, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  the  child's  natural  rate  of  thinking 
and  reading  is  not  that  into  which  he  can  be  confusedly 
hypnotized  by  an  over-strenuous  teacher. 

In  this  connection,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  diacritical 
marks  should  rarely  be  used  upon  a  page  that  is  to  be  read 
by  young  children;  and  of  course  this  is  the  period  when 
their  use  is  most  urged,  the  practiced  reader  seldom  need- 
ing them  in  actual  reading.  If  the  child  must  stop  to 
make  the  letter-sounds  focal,  he  must  necessarily  inter- 
rupt the  natural  rate  of  thinking  sentence-meanings,  to 
say  nothing  of  his  forgetting  all  about  meanings  of  any  sort 
in  his  concern  about  the  sounds  as  such.  If  the  words  of 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  351 

the  page  are  not  already  familiar  and  their  meaning  can- 
not be  suggested  by  their  context  or  by  an  illustration,  it 
is  simply  obstructive  of  habits  of  natural  reading  and 
speaking  to  interrupt  the  reading  with  thoughts  of  letter- 
sounds,  which  are  never  normally  and  focally  present 
in  actual  reading.  If  the  recognition  of  the  word  must 
be  learned  by  the  use  of  marks,  let  it  be  done  before  the 
reading  is  attempted,  and  with  the  word  in  isolation,  so 
that  the  child  will  not  come  to  think  of  such  learning  as 
"reading."  I  am  glad  to  find  that  the  present  practice 
of  the  better  teachers  is  increasingly  in  harmony  with  this 
view. 

Of  course  there  will  be  times  when  the  new  word  cannot 
be  inferred  from  the  context,  and  when  it  is  important  for 
the  pupil  to  know  what  particular  word  it  is  and  just  how 
it  should  be  pronounced.  In  such  cases,  if  he  cannot  have 
it  pronounced  for  him,  which  is  always  the  most  reliable 
way  of  getting  new  pronunciations,  his  resource  must  be 
the  dictionary  or  special  vocabulary,  and  a  knowledge  of 
certain  marks  is  indispensable  for  their  use.  To  ask 
what  marks  raises  the  whole  question  of  phonics  and 
phonetics. 

It  is  usually  stated  that  phonics  has  the  double  purpose 
of  forming  correct  habits  of  articulation  and  of  permitting 
the  mastery  of  new  words,  either  in  the  dictionary  or  in  the 
read  ing- matter.  There  is  no  doubt  that  phonics  may 
serve  this  double  purpose,  but  neither  is  there  any  doubt 


352  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

that  it  should  accomplish  its  purposes  quite  apart  from 
early  reading.  Indeed  the  studies  in  the  psychology  and 
physiology  of  speech  indicate  that  any  but  the  most  inci- 
dental analysis  of  spoken  language,  such  as  phonics  implies, 
is  dangerous  before  the  age  of  eight  or  nine,  and  in  my  opin- 
ion the  necessities  of  reading  do  not  demand  it  before  the 
latter  age  at  the  earliest.  We  know  that  the  first  year  or 
two  of  school,  about  the  time  of  the  second  dentition,  is 
one  of  the  times  most  liable  to  speech  disturbance.  And 
when  we  know,  as  we  shall  see  in  later  chapters,  that  at 
least  seven  out  of  every  thousand  Boston  children  are 
found  to  stutter,  to  say  nothing  of  the  many  others  who 
are  otherwise  abnormal  or  backward  in  speech ;  when  au- 
thorities like  A.  Melville  Bell  call  schools  the  "nurseries  of 
stuttering";  when  the  Director  of  Physical  Training  in 
the  Boston  Public  Schools,  after  careful  investigations, 
tells  us  that  the  elementary  schools  are  "the  breeding 
ground"  of  the  stuttering  habit,  that  stuttering  "is  largely 
due  to  faulty  or  misguided  methods  of  instruction  in 
speaking  and  reading,"  we  are  forced  to  say  "Hands  off" 
to  those  who  would  tamper  with  the  speech  habits  of  the 
little  ones  in  any  way  that  tends  to  increase  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  mechanism  of  speech. 

Nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  that  there  should  be  the  early 
analysis  of  speech  into  elementary  sounds,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  correct  articulation.  Those  who  articulate  most 
correctly  form  the  habits  by  unanalytical  imitation  of  th« 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  353 

word  and  sentence  wholes  which  are  correctly  spoken  by 
those  about  them.  Children  who  have  not  had  such  for- 
tunate speech  environment  still  find  their  best  corrective 
in  the  copy  set  for  imitation  in  the  oral  practice  of  the 
school.  The  elementary  school  should  give  endless  op- 
portunity for  practice  in  the  correct  use  of  the  mother- 
tongue,  and  particular  faulty  articulations  may  well  be 
brought  to  consciousness  until  corrected  by  imitation  of  the 
correct  form.  But  we  have  seen  how  intensely  artificial 
and  adult  is  the  analysis  of  living  speech  into  so-called 
elementary  sounds,  and  how  unnatural  is  even  the  word- 
sound  apart  from  its  place  in  the  sentence  whole ;  and  it  is 
evidently  still  more  important  for  speech  habits  than  for 
reading  habits  that  the  early  emphasis  should  be  placed 
upon  meaning  wholes,  with  the  thought  of  the  particular 
utterance  always  subordinate  to  the  thought  of  the  total 
meaning.  If  we  would  have  our  pupils  taught  the  correct 
and  effective  use  of  English,  we  must  have  them  practice, 
practice,  in  actual  speech,  under  the  school's  favorable 
conditions  of  speech  environment.  Over-analysis  has 
been  the  bane  of  our  English  teaching  throughout,  and  it 
would  seem  that  at  least  the  child's  earlier  years  might  be 
spared  for  natural  synthetic  use  of  the  mother-tongue. 

It  is  probable  that  with  any  language  so  nearly  phonetic 
as  is  the  German,  for  example,  the  letter-sounds,  once 
thoroughly  learned,  always  play  at  least  a  minor 
function  in  mediating  perception  in  reading;  although 

SA 


354          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

I  believe  that  Goldscheider  and  Muller  go  too  far  when 
they  make  a  consciousness  of  the  sounds  of  the  determin- 
ing letters  a  necessary  intermediate  in  perception.  But  at 
any  rate  it  does  not  seem  to  be  so  in  our  unphonetic  Eng- 
lish, and  therefore  a  knowledge  of  the  elementary  sounds 
and  of  the  characters  which  represent  them  is  not  neces- 
sary in  the  actual  reading  of  what  is  familiar.  However, 
the  wider  reading  and  the  use  of  the  dictionary,  that  may 
fairly  begin  after  the  age  of  nine,  require  the  systematic 
learning  of  the  sound-equivalents  of  all  letters,  and  the 
learning  as  well  of  some  system  of  diacritical  marking  or 
other  phonetic  writing,  since  the  letters  themselves  indicate 
pronunciation  but  partially. 

The  word-sound  may  best  be  analyzed  first,  by  speak- 
ing it  slowly  and  in  various  other  ways  that  teachers  of 
phonics  have  worked  out.  The  association  of  the  particu- 
lar sounds  with  the  letter-characters  is  also  readily  attained 
by  innumerable  devices  described  in  the  primer  literature. 
The  matter  would  be  simple  enough  if  we  could  have  a 
character  for  each  elementary  sound,  but  often  there  are 
several  characters  for  the  same  sound,  and  again  the  same 
character  may  have  several  sounds.  The  ordinary  re- 
course is  to  use  diacritical  marks,  but  the  systems  that 
are  in  prevalent  use  are  very  confusing.  For  the  present, 
it  is  probably  necessary  that  the  child  should  know  some- 
thing of  the  Webster  system,  but  only  the  more  obvious 
distinctions  should  be  attempted  at  first.  The  early  use 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  355 

of  the  marks  should  be  to  call  up  a  sufficient  number  of 
well-known  letter-sounds  to  suggest  the  total  word-sound, 
not  to  accurately  represent  .that  sound.  Accurate  repre- 
sentation of  the  word-sound  is  not  possible  in  any  case, 
and  even  provisional  accuracy  is  not  to  be  attempted  at 
this  time,  by  any  use  of  marks.  Untimely  insistence  upon 
the  finer  distinctions  both  as  to  letter-sounds  and  marks 
and  as  to  punctuation  and  capitalization,  use  of  the  hyphen, 
etc.,  has  often  stood  grievously  in  the  way  of  the  child's 
grasping  of  meanings  in  reading  and  of  his  free  expression 
of  meanings  in  writing  or  talking. 

For  the  purpose  of  dictionary  reference  at  least,  the 
"Scientific  Alphabet,"  used  in  the  Standard  Dictionary 
and  promulgated  by  the  American  Philological  Associa- 
tion and  the  American  Spelling  Reform  Association,  should 
at  one  time  or  another  be  made  familiar  to  all  children. 
The  extracts  already  given  from  the  Funk  and  Wagnalls 
Standard  Reader  illustrate  it  sufficiently.  It  should  be  re- 
membered that  this  alphabet,  in  spite  of  imperfections  on 
the  side  of  legibility  and  on  the  side  of  pedagogical  adap- 
tability, is  the  best  system  of  writing  English  phoneti- 
cally that  has  yet  been  made  accessible,  and  that  it  alone 
has  the  officially  expressed  authority  and  commendation 
of  competent  English-speaking  philologists.  Besides  giv- 
ing control  of  pronunciations  in  what  seems  likely  to  be 
the  most  generally  used  dictionary  in  America,  a  knowledge 
of  the  Scientific  Alphabet  familiarizes  the  child  with  the 


356  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

possibilities  and  with  the  great  advantages  of  a  consistent 
system  of  phonetic  spelling.  Such  familiarity  attained 
in  the  formative  period  forestalls  prejudices;  and  it  can 
therefore  do  much  more  for  a  reform  of  spelling  than  can 
any  propaganda  among  adults  whose  habits  have  set  and 
whose  prejudices  are  naturally  strongly  in  favor  of  the 
continued  use  of  the  only  forms  that  they  have  known. 

It  is  perfectly  certain,  however,  that  the  use  of  the  Scien- 
tific Alphabet  will  tend  to  confuse  the  habits  of  spelling  in 
the  traditional  fashion.  The  best  spellers  can  usually  give 
no  better  reason  for  their  correct  spelling  of  a  word  than 
that  the  right  form  comes  to  mind  with  insistence  and  is 
unquestioned.  But  if  the  wrong  form  is  often  seen,  it 
will  also  come.  Then  must  come  hesitation  and  an  in- 
creased percentage  of  errors.  Even  the  present  agitation 
in  the  newspapers  and  journals  concerning  the  proposed 
simplification  of  a  few  hundred  words  is  making  many  of 
us  unsettled  as  to  which  is  the  traditional  spelling  of  these 
words. 

But  such  confusion  is  really  to  be  welcomed  by  any  one 
who  is  interested  in  our  real  progress  in  the  use  of  English. 
When  in  doubt,  the  safer  way  will  always  be  to  use  the  simpler 
form,  and  the  more  doubts  arise,  the  faster  will  be  our 
approach  to  a  pure  phonetic  spelling.  It  is  time  that 
American  teachers  were  certain  of  the  plain  fact  that 
phonetic  spelling  is  a  goal  toward  which  English-speaking 
people  are  steadily  traveling,  although  by  various  roads, 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  357 

and  is  a  goal  that  will  certainly  be  approximately  reached. 
It  is  only  a  question  whether  we  wish  to  have  the  immense 
advantages  of  such  spelling  at  an  earlier  day  by  planning 
for  it,  and  by  enduring,  during  a  perhaps  necessary  stage 
of  confused  spellings,  the  almost  painful  feelings  that  come 
to  many  of  us  when  we  see  a  word  misspelled. 

Those  who  refuse  to  use  the  Scientific  Alphabet  should 
adopt  or  devise  some  system  of  dictionary  marking  which 
will  plainly  indicate  the  silent  letters  and  which  will  place 
with  each  sounded  letter  that  is  to  be  marked  some  one 
mark  which  will  constantly  represent  that  sound,  no  matter 
what  the  letter  may  be.  Such  a  system  requires  fewer 
marks,  and  these  marks,  having  constant  sound  values,  are 
far  less  confusing  than  are  those  of  the  systems  in  current 
use.  The  Shearer  system,  already  illustrated,  is  the  best 
that  I  know  of  the  kind,  and  is  in  my  opinion  worthy  of 
more  attention  than  it  has  received  from  the  makers  of  dic- 
tionaries, although  it  needs  certain  modifications  on  the 
side  of  legibility.  Such  a  system  has  the  advantage 
of  not  suggesting  misspellings,*  visually  at  least,  and  of 
yet  familiarizing  the  child  with  the  use  of  a  strictly 
phonetic  system.  It  merely  hacks  the  word-trees  that 
are  dead,  leaving  them  standing;  it  gives  an  unvarying 
character  for  each  sound,  and  never  represents  several 
sounds  by  the  same  character  as  in  the  Webster  and  other 
systems.  Care  is  to  be  taken,  however,  that  the  child 
shall  not  read  from  a  page  so  marked,  although  such  read- 


358  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

ing  may  be  of  the  greatest  value  to  adult  foreigners  who 
wish  to  learn  English  quickly. 

However,  all  the  systems  of  phonetic  writing  and 
marking,  often  most  carefully  worked  out  from  the  philo- 
logical and  logical  points  of  view,  have  been  conspicuously 
lacking  in  revision  from  the  psychological  and  pedagog- 
ical sides.  Psychology  and  pedagogy  have  now  ad- 
vanced far  enough  to  make  such  revision  quite  possible 
and  practicable,  and  this  is  now  one  of  the  many  impor- 
tant problems  awaiting  solution  at  the  hands  of  our  newly 
established  psycho-educational  departments. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

READING    AS    A    DISCIPLINE,    AND    AS    TRAINING    IN    THE 
EFFECTIVE  USE  OF  BOOKS 

READING  as  a  school  exercise  has  almost  always  been 
thought  of  as  reading  aloud,  in  spite  of  the  obvious  fact 
that  reading  in  actual  life  is  to  be  mainly  silent  reading. 
The  consequent  attention  to  reading  as  an  exercise  in 
speaking,  and  it  has  usually  been  a  rather  bad  exercise  in 
speaking  at  that,  has  been  heavily  at  the  expense  of  read- 
ing as  the  art  of  thought-getting  and  thought  manipulat- 
ing. With  the  newer  and  more  correct  ideal,  much  that 
is  of  the  greatest  value  can  be  done  for  the  reader  in  the 
time  that  was  formerly  given  to  laboriously  wading  through 
the  pronunciation  of  the  lessons.  By  silently  reading 
meanings  from  the  first  day  of  reading,  and  by  practice  in 
getting  meanings  from  the  page  at  the  naturally  rapid  rate 
at  which  meanings  come  from  situations  in  actual  life, 
the  rate  of  reading  and  of  thinking  will  grow  with  the 
pupil's  growth  and  with  his  power  to  assimilate  what  is 
read.  We  have  seen  that  the  rapid  readers  have  the 
firmest  grasp  of  meanings  and  retain  best  what  they  read. 
Continued  practice  in  the  prompt  extraction  of  what  the 
page  has  for  the  reader,  irrespective  of  how  it  would  sound 

359 


360          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

if  read  to  others,  must  result  in  increasing  considerably  the 
average  effective  rate  of  reading.  And  such  practice  will 
also  develop  discriminative  reading,  and  will  develop 
the  power  to  discriminate  and  to  grasp  the  essential. 
Pages  that  are  full  of  meaning,  or  that  carry  meanings  for 
which  the  reader's  apperception  is  not  well  prepared,  will 
be  given  the  time  that  they  require.  But  many  a  page  has 
almost  nothing  that  the  reader  wants,  or  only  suggests 
what  he  is  already  familiar  with.  There  is  simply  no 
sense  in  reading  such  matter  carefully  at  the  regulation 
pace.  The  reader  cannot  afford  it.  Such  reading  costs 
the  reader  his  time,  and  one  who  has  been  practiced  in 
feeling  values  in  reading  will  fly  over  such  pages,  delaying 
only  at  the  occasional  oases  that  appear  in  the  desert  of 
words.  In  such  cases  almost  everything  is  in  favor  of  the 
rapid  reader.  Not  only  does  he  save  valuable  time,  but 
having  the  eye  far  ahead  of  the  voice,  and  having,  too,  a 
larger  amount  of  what  is  being  read  ringing  simultaneously 
and  unitarily  in  the  inner  speech,  he  holds  in  his  grasp 
at  every  moment  a  larger  total  of  meaning,  and  sees  each 
part  in  a  better  perspective.  The  disjointedness  of  print 
tends  of  itself  to  give  an  unnatural  hobble  to  reading, 
and  the  one  who  grasps  in  larger  units  feels  best  the 
meaning-totalities  which  are  given  quickly  in  actual 
speech,  but  which  may  need  a  long  paragraph  in  print.  The 
contracted  speech  range  of  the  slow  reader  simply  loses 
at  each  moment  both  ends  of  the  total  that  is  needed  for 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  361 

an  easy  and  correct  grasp  of  meanings.  It  is  sometimes 
necessary  to  read  a  difficult  passage  slowly  at  first,  feeling 
the  full  values  of  each  word  or  of  important  words.  But 
even  in  such  a  case  the  correct  meaning  is  better  appre- 
ciated when  such  dissection  is  followed  by  a  continuous 
reading  at  a  rather  rapid  rate.  Of  course  there  are  care- 
less rapid  readers  as  there  are  plodding  slow  ones.  But 
if  the  practice  has  been  in  getting  meanings  rapidly,  and 
not  in  covering  a  maximum  number  of  pages,  the  rapid 
rate  will  not  be  found  to  stand  in  the  way  of  thoroughness. 
It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  each  reader  should  be 
developed  only  to  his  own  maximum  rate  of  effective  read- 
ing, and  that  these  maximum  rates  will  have  as  great  in- 
dividual differences  as  have  the  rates  of  thinking  generally 
for  these  individuals. 

With  the  breaking  up  of  the  habits  of  reading  at  a  dead 
level  of  speed  and  intensity,  or  rather  with  readers  who 
have  never  been  led  to  form  such  habits,  reading  may 
become  one  of  our  most  effective  means  of  mental  disci- 
pline. But  its  value  as  discipline  depends  mainly  upon 
how  it  is  done,  as  in  any  study,  and  not  upon  the  mere 
fact  of  its  being  done.  There  is  always  the  danger  that 
the  one  who  reads  much  will  lose  the  natural  tendency 
to  link  action  to  thought  and  to  feeling.  The  reader 
tends  to  go  on  reading  and  to  put  off  to  a  more  convenient 
season  the  doing  of  the  suggested  deed.  The  plant 
that  we  read  about  is  not  there  to  handle  and  to  care  for. 


362          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

The  poor  people  that  we  are  moved  to  help  will  be  for- 
gotten before  the  reader  finds  himself  where  he  can  help 
them.  Reading  starts  multitudes  of  these  impulses, 
most  of  which  must  perforce  die  because  we  are  not  in 
a  position  to  act  them  out,  and  the  reading  habit  doubt- 
less weakens,  for  many  readers,  the  power  to  promptly 
decide  and  perform.  Doubtless  in  the  early  stages  of 
any  study  it  is  much  safer  to  learn  by  direct  observation 
and  performance  with  the  objects  themselves,  and  Rous- 
seau's insistence  upon  the  study  of  things  as  against 
words  needs  constant  reiteration  and  reapplication. 

There  is  the  danger,  too,  that  minds  will  be  disin- 
tegrated by  much  reading.  The  mind  which  continually 
passes  in  review  quantities  of  ideas,  impulses,  and  feel- 
ings, without  acting  upon  them  and  without  organizing 
them,  tends  to  take  on  itself  the  shapelessness  and  dis- 
organization of  what  it  finds  in  reading.  At  the  best, 
reading  will  always  have  these  dangers,  and  over-reading, 
or  reading  pursued  mainly  for  its  own  sake,  will  always 
have  some  of  these  results.  The  natural  remedies  are, 
first,  to  begin  each  study,  as  I  have  suggested,  with  action 
and  direct  observation  rather  than  with  reading,  and 
for  a  long  time  to  read  only  as  actual  need  arises  for  the 
guidance  or  inspiration  of  action;  second,  to  nucleate 
the  reading  about  one's  life  activities  so  that  it  always 
serves  a  purpose,  so  that  the  reader  is  always  feeling 
values  and  choosing  such  as  he  can  use,  while  rejecting 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  363 

or  ignoring  most.  If  the  mind  really  keeps  positively 
exercising  itself  and  feeding  on  what  may  be  found  worth 
using,  it  may  deal  safely  with  almost  any  quantity  of  any 
material.  But  the  reader  who  lets  the  machinery  of 
reading  automatically  run  through  with  any  and  all 
grists  will  be  found  growing  to  a  likeness  that  is  without 
character. 

However,  despite  the  dangers  from  wrong  habits  of 
reading,  I  repeat  that  the  reading  of  the  mother-tongue 
may  be  made  one  of  the  most  effective  means  of  mental 
discipline.  In  the  first  place,  while  in  the  early  stages 
of  any  study  direct  observation  and  experience  are  better 
than  reading,  and  the  concrete  must  precede  the  abstract, 
there  comes  a  time  when  overdependence  on  the  object 
itself  cripples  the  power  to  think,  when  the  further  de- 
velopment of  thought-power  demands  the  manipulation 
of  meanings  by  means  of  language.  The  meanings 
and  ideas  used  in  thinking  are  mainly  conceptual,  ab- 
stract ideas  and  meanings,  and  inhere  mainly  in  words. 
President  Hall  rightly  urges,  therefore,  that  in  our  present- 
day  insistence  on  the  concrete  we  are  in  some  danger 
of  arresting  the  power  of  thinking,  in  a  stage  which  is 
but  a  preparatory  though  a  necessary  one.  Certain  it 
is  that  reading,  when  carried  on  as  the  manipulation 
of  abstract  meanings  for  the  attainment  of  the  reader's 
purposes,  becomes  excellent  practice  in  the  higher  pro- 
cesses of  thought.  The  practice  in  silent,  selective  read- 


364          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

ing,  the  constant  feeling  for  values  and  choosing  of  what 
is  essential,  is  of  the  essence  of  mental  discipline,  is  golden 
practice  in  the  training  of  the  judgment.  There  has 
been  deplorably  little  of  such  practice,  even  in  the  high 
school  years,  and  the  majority  of  students  who  enter 
college,  or  even  graduate  from  college,  are  consequently 
quite  unable  to  make  effective  abstracts  or  to  grasp  quickly 
the  gist  of  what  is  read  or  heard.  We  are  not  likely  to 
overestimate  the  value  of  such  mental  training  pursued 
continuously,  as  it  well  may  be,  from  even  the  earliest 
days  of  reading.  On  every  page  of  reading  that  is  done 
with  a  motive  there  is  the  relevant  to  be  set  off  from  the 
irrelevant,  or  there  is  to  be  the  rejection  of  all  as  irrelevant. 
There  comes  to  be  a  semi-automatic  "feeling  its  way" 
of  mind  among  its  material,  adding  to  itself  and  rejecting 
according  to  an  ingrown  habit  that  becomes  of  the  mind's 
very  nature.  I  am  convinced  personally  that  the  dis- 
cipline of  such  practice  in  reading  English  is  considerably 
superior  to  that  obtained  from  the  reading  of  the  ancient 
languages.  Not  only  is  there  the  development  of  the 
power  to  feel  values  and  to  choose  the  essential,  but  with 
proper  attention  to  rate,  and  with  practice  in  the  prompt 
gathering  of  thought  and  meaning,  there  comes  the  habit 
and  power  of  promptly  deciding,  of  making  the  selection 
and  the  judgment  while  the  material  is  being  handled, 
with  no  loss  of  time.  This  attainment  of  a  proper  " pace" 
of  accurate  judging  is  perhaps  as  important  as  the  power 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  365 

of  judging  itself,  and  I  fear  that  such  a  pace  is  rather 
hindered  by  the  prevailing  practice  with  the  classics. 

After  all,  we  get  most  of  our  mental  and  other  habits 
by  imitation;  and  real  reading  in  which  the  author's 
meanings  are  felt,  and  felt  in  a  perspective  of  values  in 
which  we  actively  and  sympathetically  follow  the  ins 
and  outs  of  his  intentions  and  selections  and  associations, 
and  feel  his  cautions,  his  fidelity  to  truth,  his  accuracy 
and  method, —  such  reading  cannot  but  train  the  mind  to 
modes  of  functioning  that  are  similar  to  his.  With  this 
feeling  I  have,  for  my  own  part,  usually  been  partial  to 
the  use  of  books  from  the  master's  own  hand,  rather 
than  to  use  adaptations  which,  of  course,  often  have 
a  better  pedagogical  arrangement.  To  be  sure,  this 
cannot  be  made  a  general  rule ;  but  to  really  read  a  great 
book  until,  as  President  Hall  puts  it,  we  "get  the  flavor," 
gives  a  higher  tone  to  the  whole  personality;  and  it  is 
certain  that  really  exercising  one's  self  in  the  mental 
functionings  of  a  great  mind  at  least  acquaints  one  with 
the  more  effective  ways  of  thinking,  and  develops  them 
in  the  reader,  unless  it  happens  that  the  copy  has  such 
peculiar  individual  traits  as  to  make  it  impossible  of 
adaptation. 

In  order  to  obtain  the  rich  disciplinary  value  of  reading, 
much  of  the  instruction  in  the  subject  must  consist  in 
teaching  the  effective  use  of  the  library.  The  library 
is  the  reading  laboratory,  and  reading  is  a  laboratory 


366  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

subject.  The  pupil  must  be  taught  to  use  the  catalog 
and  to  find  the  proper  books  and  articles  promptly, 
getting  what  is  needed  from  them  without  dissipating 
energy  on  irrelevant  matter.  He  must  learn  to  use  books 
of  reference  and  indexes,  and  to  take  notes  in  usable 
form,  to  make  abstracts,  digests,  reviews;  must  learn 
to  do  things  with  what  is  read  and  to  read  so  as  to  get 
things  done.  Dr.  Winthrop  somewhere  argues  that 
physicians  are  apt  to  be  effective  readers  because  they 
have  so  little  time  for  reading ;  and,  reading  for  applica- 
tion in  their  individual  cases,  they  quickly  grasp  and 
retain  the  gist  of  what  is  read  in  flying  moments.  Perhaps 
librarians  will  sometime  be  trained  to  be  our  most  effective 
teachers  of  reading,  and  many  of  them  are  so  already. 
The  growing  practice  of  having  specially  trained  children's 
librarians  suggests  rich  possibilities  of  having  the  teach- 
ing of  reading  made  more  effective.  Perhaps  if  all 
reading  classes  had  to  be  conducted  in  the  library, 
the  "silence"  rule  itself  would  compel  a  better  use  of  the 
recitation  time;  and  I  am  glad  to  find,  too,  that  in  the 
best  libraries  the  early  years  are  provided  for  with  read- 
ings aloud  and  the  telling  of  stories  to  the  children,  giving 
the  literature  to  the  children  as  the  race  learned  it  in  its 
childhood,  through  the  ear,  and  with  the  help  of  an 
abundance  of  pictures. 

The  fact  is  that  school  children  get  little  from  reading 
not  only  because  they  usually  never  really  learn  how  to 


THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING  36) 

read  effectively,  but  also  because,  and  especially  in  the 
grades,  they  are  not  given  opportunity  to  read  at  all. 
President  Eliot,  in  his  address  on  "An  Average  Massa- 
chusetts Grammar  School,"1  states  that  "The  amount 
of  time  given  to  reading  and  the  study  of  the  English 
language  through  the  spelling-book  and  the  little  gram- 
mar which  are  used  in  that  school,  and  through  a  variety 
of  other  aids  to  the  learning  of  English,  is  thirty-seven 
per  cent  of  all  school-time  during  six  years."  Yet  he 
found  by  actual  test  that  a  high  school  graduate  could 
read  aloud  at  a  moderate  rate  "everything  that  the  chil- 
dren in  most  of  the  rooms  of  that  school  have  been  sup- 
posed to  read  during  their  entire  course  of  six  years," 
in  forty-six  hours.  "These  children  had,  therefore, 
been  more  than  two  solid  years  of  school-time  in  going 
through  what  an  ordinary  high  school  graduate  can 
read  aloud  in  forty-six  hours."  No  wonder  if,  as  some 
say,  our  use  of  English  has  been  deteriorating  for  forty 
years,  in  spite  of  our  giving  more  and  more  time  to  it. 
We  have  had  quite  too  much  dissection  of  small  sections 
of  knowledge  and  of  language  and  much  too  little  of 
actual  constructive  use  of  the  mother-tongue.  Grammar, 
linguistics,  form,  the  old  age  of  language,  have  displaced 
content  and  spirit,  the  professor  of  English  often  having 
only  analytical  ideals.  Thoroughness  has  often  become 
a  fetich,  and  has  too  often  meant  going  at  the  same 

1  Educational  Reform,  p.  185. 


368  THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING 

intensity  over  every  inch  of  some  restricted  and  perhaps 
unworthy  area,  forgetting  that  just  as  much  thorough- 
ness might  be  shown  in  the  same  time  by  working  se- 
lectively through  ten  times  the  material,  to  accomplish 
some  inspiring  constructive  task. 

The  deadening  effect  of  too  much  analysis  is  especially 
noticeable  at  the  period  of  early  adolescence,  the  period 
when,  as  Bullock,  Lancaster,  Kirkpatrick,  Vostrovsky, 
and  others  have  shown,  there  comes  a  veritable  craze 
for  extensive  reading.  This  interest  should  be  judi- 
ciously fed,  instead  of  confining  these  young  people  to 
the  usual  contracted  diet  of  analytical  English  and  still 
more  analytical  Latin  or  Greek.  This  time,  too,  when 
the  language  habits  are  setting,  is  the  very  time  when 
the  pernicious  translation  English  is  allowed  to  cooperate 
with  the  dissection  of  the  mother-tongue  in  unsettling 
all  that  should  be  smoothly  constructing  itself. 

And  yet  this  is  the  time  when,  if  ever,  the  pupil  wants 
life,  not  death,  in  literature;  when  he  wants  to  forage 
among  life's  ideals  and  ring  the  changes  on  all  the  feelings ; 
wants  freedom  to  roam  and  to  look  at  himself  in  that 
best  mirror  of  the  soul,  the  world's  best  literature.  Eng- 
lish will  not  be  disliked  if  the  pupil  is  permitted  and 
encouraged  to  feed  these  interests,  and  especially  if  his 
individual  interests  and  even  whims  are  not  crossed  in 
the  gratuitous  effort  to  standardize  the  reading  require- 
ments for  entrance  to  college*  The  best  of  "required 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  369 

books"  are  often  abhorred  by  good  students  who  will, 
nevertheless,  take  delight  in  others  that  are  quite  as 
good.  At  any  rate,  it  is  high  time  that  high  schools 
should  live  for  their  own  pupils  and  come  out  of  the 
shadow  cast  backwards  upon  all  pupils  by  college  en- 
trance requirements  and  examinations  that  will  be  taken 
by  comparatively  few.  If  most  of  the  Latin  and  analyti- 
cal English  were  exchanged  for  extensive  foraging  in  the 
world's  great  classics,  all  read  in  the  mother-tongue  by 
pupils  who  have  been  taught  to  really  read  from  their 
earliest  contact  with  the  printed  page,  the  conditions 
would  at  least  be  much  improved. 

Not  that  better  and  wider  reading  will  solve  all  the 
troubles  with  English.  On  the  expression  side,  the  ex- 
cessive amount  of  perfunctory  written  work,  and  technical 
rhetoric  with  its  excess  of  formula  at  the  expense  of 
spirit,  must  give  place  to  far  more  of  oral  work,  to  ex- 
ercises in  using  English  effectively  for  the  pupil's  own 
purposes.  Habits  of  using  the  mother-tongue  correctly 
and  effectively  are  formed  mainly  by  practice  at  a  natural 
rate,  the  rate  of  speech  or  thought,  and  not  at  the  necessar- 
ily self-analytical  pace  of  writing.  When  people  wrote 
as  they  talked,  there  was  brilliance  in  literature,  and 
rhetoric  to  be  effective  must  again  become  largely  what 
it  meant  in  the  days  of  Greece,  oratory,  the  art  of  per- 
suading men  with  the  living  voice  and  manner. 

Young  people  are  interested  in  this  kind  of  English 

2B 


370  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

expression,  if  they  are  encouraged  to  express  their  real 
selves  on  topics  that  touch  their  actual  life.  And  again, 
on  the  side  of  impression,  they  should  hear  much  as  well 
as  read  widely,  and  they  are  almost  always  eager  to  hear 
good  literature  well  interpreted,  however  indifferent 
they  may  be  about  reading  the  same  authors.  The 
impression  made  is  stronger  and  more  lasting,  and  the 
understanding  is  better.  If  reading  by  ear  is  more  in- 
teresting and  effective,  there  is  no  reason  why  students 
of  literature  should  not  be  given  all  the  benefit  that  the 
schools  can  afford  by  using  this  method  whenever  it  is 
possible.  There  was  a  time  when  telegraph  operators 
read  their  messages  from  a  paper  tape,  but  the  ear  has 
proved  itself  a  far  better  receiver.  We  would  not  think 
of  being  satisfied  with  reading  a  charming  opera  from 
the  printed  score.  The  music  of  speech,  too,  well  repays 
its  proper  rendition  to  the  listening  ear;  and  the  regular 
rather  than  the  holiday  dramatization  of  literature  may, 
as  Sir  Henry  Irving  urged,  yet  be  made  an  effective 
part  of  our  school  work  in  English. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
WHAT  TO  READ;  THE  READING  OF  ADOLESCENTS 

THERE  remains  for  brief  consideration  the  question 
of  what  should  be  read  in  school,  and  it  is  clear  in  the 
first  place  that  the  reading-matter  will  be  of  two  some- 
what distinct  classes.  First,  the  pupil  will  properly  read 
all  that  will  help  him  live  the  life  of  the  school,  and  that 
will  inform  him  about  the  activities  and  studies  with 
which  his  school  life  concerns  itself.  Such  reading- 
matter  will  review  and  organize  his  experiences,  as  in 
the  Chicago  children's  printed  accounts  of  their  trip  to 
the  country,  their  work  in  the  garden,  etc.  Letters  and 
other  communications  and  directions  concerning  the  life 
of  the  school  will  be  read  as  the  occasion  arises.  Read- 
ing and  writing  will  be,  in  the  little  school  community, 
just  what  they  are  in  adult  business,  — they  will  be  means 
of  doing  effectively  whatever  is  to  be  done.  Colonel 
Parker  urged  that  reading,  as  such,  should  disappear  in 
the  study  of  the  "central  subjects."  Certainly  what- 
ever needs  to  be  read  in  living  the  natural  life  of  the 
school  is  proper  subject-matter  for  "reading  lessons"; 
that  is,  such  reading- matter  gives  opportunity  for  practice 
and  for  wise  direction  in  reading  effectively. 


372  THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING 

Second,  reading  from  the  beginning  will  be  done  to 
feed  the  child's  soul,  —  to  nourish  his  imagination, 
his  moral  impulses,  his  higher  aspirations,  for  a  child 
has  his  higher  aspirations  as  well  as  has  the  adult.  In 
other  words,  the  child  should  from  the  first  read  real 
humanizing  literature.  A  beginning  will  have  been 
made  in  the  teacher's  story-telling  and  readings  aloud, 
and  the  best  kind  of  reader  for  this  period  is  Old 
Mother  Goose,  the  rhymes  and  jingles  and  stories  that 
are  so  dear  to  the  child's  soul  and  that  have  been  voted 
classic  by  millions  of  children,  not  classic  because  they 
are  old  but  old  because  they  are  classic,  the  worthless 
having  been  allowed  to  die. 

And  then  there  are  the  myths  and  folk  tales  and  legends 
and  ballads,  through  which  successive  stages  literature 
grew  into  history  and  developed  poetry.  It  is  the  child's 
natural  inheritance  that  he  shall  read  over  this  old  race 
trail,  and  the  excellent  adaptations  of  these  classic  stories 
and  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  by  men  like  Lang  and 
Church,  give  right  food  for  the  early  period.  While 
it  is  doubtless  unwise  to  make  the  child's  early  reading 
deal  exclusively  or  even  mainly  with  the  unreal,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  his  fancy  is  busily  playing  most  of 
the  time,  even  when  he  is  dealing  with  sticks  and  stones 
and  toy  horses  and  harness;  and  fairy  tales  and  the 
wildest  myths  do  not  exceed  the  extravagance  of  his 
everyday  thought,  but  simply  exercise  him  in  more  beauti- 


THE   PEDAGOGY    OF   READING  373 

ful  and  ideally  truthful  ways  of  doing  this  his  everyday 
thinking.  To  insist  constantly  upon  the  real  in  his  read- 
ing as  in  his  talking  and  thinking  is  to  make  him  other 
than  a  child  and  to  unfit  him  as  well  for  adult  thinking. 
On  the  other  hand,  however,  the  child  knows,  and 
appreciates  reality  as  distinguished  from  fancy,  and  he 
should  be  helped  in  making  this  distinction  and  in  valuing 
truth  and  truthfulness  by  reading  much  of  what  is  faithful 
to  reality.  We  have  come  to  have  a  wealth  of  true  stories 
well  told,  in  history,  natural  science,  biography,  travel, 
etc.  These  are  of  the  greatest  interest  to  young  readers, 
and  are  full  of  the  highest  idealism  as  well.  The  child's 
reading  should  include  much  of  both  these  classes  of 
matter,  and  in  the  main  should  be  done  independently 
of  formal  "Readers."  Many  of  the  old  readers  had  a 
high  culture  value  through  their  wise  selection  of  master- 
pieces from  literature,  but  far  too  little  was  read,  and  the 
scrappy  compilations  gave  little  real  introduction  to  the 
great  body  of  valuable  literature  from  which  the  selections 
were  taken.  Wider  reading  is  needed,  and  the  reading 
of  literary  wholes.  Miss  Mary  E.  Burt,  in  the  Dial  for 
March  16,  1893,  tells  of  her  experiment  in  teaching  read- 
ing without "  Readers, "  using  "  real  books  "  from  the  library 
instead.  She  decided  that  the  reading-book  was  "of  no 
earthly  use,"  that  it  "made  children  timid  toward  real 
books,"  that  "the  child  should  never  be  compelled  to  buy 
a  reading-book.  He  should  buy  only  what  is  desirable 


374  THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

to  keep  through  life  in  a  library."  She  gives  the  children 
the  Odyssey,  Irving's  works,  Shakespeare,  Hawthorne, 
and  later  even  Plato's  Phaedo,  Dante,  .^E'schylus,  Sophocles, 
Plutarch,  Tennyson,  etc.  She  would  have  "  thirty  copies, 
or  enough  to  go  round"  of  each  of  these  and  similar  books, 
for  a  class,  and  likes  the  original  books  rather  than  even 
the  best  of  adaptations.  The  plan  was  indorsed  by 
John  Burroughs  and  wife,  who  followed  the  experiments ; 
and  certainly  much  is  to  be  said  in  favor  of  introducing 
the  children  directly  to  the  library. 

The  absurdity  of  confining  the  child's  reading  to 
the  very  limited  texts  of  the  grammar  school  course  is 
most  evident  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades  and  in  the 
lower  high  school  classes.  The  studies  upon  this  early 
adolescent  period  not  only  show  that  it  is  usually  marked 
by  a  mania  for  reading,  but  they  indicate  the  unfitness 
of  this  age,  in  interest  and  capacity,  for  the  usual  intensive 
analytic  study  of  a  few  standard  selections.  As  President 
Hall  says  in  his  "  Adolescence  " 1 :  "  It  is  the  age  of  skipping 
and  sampling,  of  pressing  the  keys  lightly.  What  is 
acquired  is  not  examinable,  but  only  suggestive.  Perhaps 
nothing  real  now  fails  to  leave  its  mark;  it  cannot  be 
orally  reproduced  at  all,  but  in  emergency  it  is  at  hand  for 
use.  As  Augustine  said  of  God,  so  the  child  might  say 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  474-480.  These  and  the  other  selections  from  Hall's 
•'Adolescence"  are  quoted  by  permission  of  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  copy- 
right, 1904. 


THE   PEDAGOGY   OF   READING  375 

of  most  of  his  mental  content  in  these  psychic  areas,  'If 
you  ask  me,  I  do  not  know;  but  if  you  do  not  ask  me, 
I  know  very  well,'  —  a  case  analogous  to  the  typical  girl 
who  exclaimed  to  her  teacher,  'I  can  do  and  understand 
this  perfectly  if  you  only  won't  explain  it.'"  "School 
pressure  should  not  suppress  this  instinct  of  omnivorous 
reading,  which  at  this  age  sometimes  prompts  the  resolve 
to  read  encyclopaedias,  and  even  libraries,  or  to  sample 
everything  to  be  found  in  books  at  home.  Along  with 
but  never  suppressing  it  there  should  be  some  stated 
reading,  but  this  should  lay  down  only  kinds  of  reading 
...  or  offer  a  goodly  number  of  large  alternative  groups 
of  books  and  authors  like  the  five  of  the  Leland  Stanford 
University  and  permit  wide  liberty  of  choice  to  both  teacher 
and  pupil.  Few  triumphs  of  the  uniformitarians,  who 
sacrifice  individual  need  to  mechanical  convenience  in 
dealing  with  youth  in  masses,  have  been  so  sad  as  marking 
off  and  standardizing  a  definite  quantum  of  requirements 
here.  Instead  of  irrigating  a  wide  field,  the  well-springs 
of  literary  interest  are  forced  to  cut  a  deep  canon  and 
leave  wide  desert  plains  of  ignorance  on  either  side." 
Besides,  too  often,  as  President  Hall  says,  "  the  prime  moral 
purpose  of  youthful  reading  is  ignored  in  choices  based  on 
form  and  style,  and  a  growing  profusion  of  notes  that 
distract  from  content  to  language,  the  study  of  which  be- 
longs in  the  college  if  not  in  the  university,  develops  the 
tendencies  of  criticism  before  the  higher  powers  of  sym- 


376  THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

pathetic  appreciation  have  done  their  work."  President 
Hall  quotes  with  approval  the  opinion  of  Quintilian  that 
the  simple  reading  of  great  works,  such  as  national  epics, 
"will  Contribute  more  to  the  unfoldment  of  students  than 
all  the  treatises  of  all  the  rhetoricians  that  ever  wrote"; 
and  on  the  question  which  remains,  as  to  what  the  young 
adolescent  should  read,  I  cannot  help  my  readers  better 
than  by  quoting  at  length  the  advice  of  this  our  profoundest 
student  of  youth,  from  his  Adolescence  l :  — 

"  At  the  dawn  of  adolescence  I  am  convinced  that  there  is  noth- 
ing more  wholesome  for  the  material  of  English  study  than  that 
of  the  early  mythic  period  in  Western  Europe.  I  refer  to  the  lit- 
erature of  the  Arthuriad  and  the  Sangrail,  the  stories  of  Parsifal, 
Tristram,  Isolde,  Galahad,  Gawain,  Geraint,  Siegfried,  Brunhilde, 
Roland,  the  Cid,  Orlando,  Lancelot,  Tannhaiiser,  Beowulf,  Lo- 
hengrin, Robin  Hood,  and  Rolando.  This  material  is  more  or  less 
closely  connected  in  itself,  although  falling  into  large  groups. 
Much  of  it  bottoms  o;i  the  Nibelungen  and  is  connected  with  the 
old  Teutonic  mythology  running  back  to  the  gods  of  Asgard.  We 
have  here  a  vast  body  of  ethical  material,  characters  that  are  almost 
colossal  in  their  proportions,  incidents  thrilling  and  dramatic  to  a 
degree  that  stirs  the  blood  and  thrills  the  nerves.  It  is  a  quarry 
where  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Spenser,  Scott,  Tennyson,  Wagner, 
Ibsen,  and  scores  of  artists  in  various  lines  have  found  subject-mat- 
ter. The  value  of  this  material  makes  it  almost  Biblical  for  the  early 
and  middle  teens,  and  is  increased,  from  whatever  point  of  view  we 
scrutinize  it,  for  this  purpose.  In  a  sense  it  is  a  kind  of  secular  New 
Testament  of  classical  myths.  Lancelot's  quarrel  with  Arthur 
parallels  in  more  modern  form  that  between  Achilles  and  Agamem- 
non. The  skalds,  bards,  troubadours,  meistersingers,  and  old 

1  Vol.  II,  pp.  442-444- 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  377 

chroniclers  and  romancers  compare  with  the  Homeridae ;  the  quest 
of  the  Grail  with  the  argonautic  expedition  for  the  Golden  Fleece; 
Vivian  with  Circe;  Merlin  with  Nestor;  Asgard  with  Olympus. 
The  northern  myths  are  more  sublime  and  less  beautiful;  content 
predominates  more  over  form;  there  is  more  of  the  best  spirit  of 
modern  romance,  and  woman's  position  is  higher.  This  rich  field 
represents  perhaps  the  brightest  spot  of  the  dark  ages  and  the  best 
expression  of  feudalism.  It  teaches  the  highest  reverence  for  woman- 
hood, piety,  valor,  loyalty,  courtesy,  munificence,  justice,  and  obe- 
dience. The  very  life  blood  of  chivalry  is  heroism.  Here  we  find 
the  origin  of  most  of  the  modern  ideas  of  a  gentleman,  who  is  tender, 
generous,  and  helpful,  as  well  as  brave;  the  spirit  which  has  given 
us  Bayard  and  Sidney,  as  well  as  the  pure,  spotless,  ideal  knight,  Sir 
Galahad.  These  stories  are  not  mechanically  manufactured,  but 
they  grew  slowly  and  naturally  in  the  soul  of  the  race.  They,  too, 
shape  and  direct  fear,  love,  pity,  anger,  essentially  aright.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  writer  never  legislates  more  wisely  for  the  feelings  or  for 
the  imagination  than  when  he  is  inspired  by  and  uses  this  material 
well.  It  stirs  those  subtle  perceptions,  where  deep  truths  sleep  in 
the  youthful  soul  before  they  come  to  full  consciousness.  Although 
they  have  no  very  definite  geography  or  date,  so  that  such  events 
and  persons  existed  nowhere,  they  might  be  realized  anywhere.  To 
the  mind  at  this  stage  of  growth  nothing  seems  quite  complete  or 
quite  actual.  The  air  whispers  secrets  of  something  about  to  hap- 
pen, because  to  nascent  faculties  the  whole  world  seems  a  little  mys- 
tic, though  very  friendly.  It  is  this  kind  of  muthos  that  is  the  mother 
of  poetry,  religion,  art,  and,  to  some  extent,  of  morals,  philosophy, 
and  science.  It  is  not  very  examinable  material,  for  it  works  too 
deeply  and  unconsciously,  and  the  best  and  largest  objects  of  the 
soul  have  not  yet  come  to  consciousness  at  this  age,  but  the  great 
lines  of  cleavage  between  right  and  wrong,  beauty  and  ugliness, 
truth  and  falsehood,  are  being  controlled,  and  the  spiritual  faculties 
developed.  Morals  and  aesthetics,  which  are  never  so  inseparable 
AS  at  this  period,  are  here  found  in  normal  union."  ...  "If 


378          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

we  have  anywhere  the  material  for  an  ethnic  Bible  left  at  the  mosr 
interesting  and  promising  stages  of  incompleteness  by  the  advent 
of  the  alien  culture  material  brought  to  the  Teutonic  races  by  Chris- 
tianity, it  is  here.  I  have  looked  over  eight  of  the  best  known  popular 
digests  of  all  or  principal  parts  of  this  matter  and  many  lesser  para- 
phrases, but  do  not  find  quite  the  right  treatment,  and  I  believe  that 
a  great  duty  is  laid  upon  high  school  teachers  now;  namely,  that  of 
reediting  this  matter  into  form  that  shall  be  no  less  than  canonical 
for  their  pupils.  Pedagogic  art  is  often,  as  Walter  Pater  says  of 
art  in  general,  the  removal  of  rubbish.  Excrescences  must  be  elimi 
nated,  the  gold  recoined,  its  culture  power  brought  out,  till,  if  the 
ideal  were  fully  realized,  the  teacher  would  almost  become  a  bard  of 
these  heroic  tales,  with  a  mind  saturated  with  all  available  literature, 
pictures,  and  even  music  bearing  on  it,  requiring  written  and  oral 
reproduction  from  the  pupils  to  see  what  sinks  deepest.  Some 
would  measure  the  progress  of  culture  by  the  work  of  reinterpreting 
on  ever  higher  planes  the  mythic  tradition  of  a  race,  and  how  this  is 
done  for  youth  is  a  good  criterion  of  pedagogic  progress." 

Perhaps  we  shall  have,  by-and-by,  such  a  collecting  and 
editing  of  this  material  as  has  been  done  for  German 
young  people  in  "Das  Deutsche  Lesebuch,"  a  ten- volume 
work  of  over  thirty-five  hundred  pages.  In  the  preparation 
of  this  great  "Reader,"  "many  men  for  years  went  over 
the  history  of  German  literature,  from  the  Eddas  and 
Nibelungenlied  down,  including  a  few  living  writers,  care- 
fully selecting  saga,  legends,  Marchen,  fables,  proverbs, 
hymns,  a  few  prayers,  Bible  tales,  conundrums,  jests, 
and  humorous  tales,  with  many  digests,  epitomes,  and 
condensations  of  great  standards,  quotations,  epic,  lyric, 
and  dramatic  poetry,  adventure,  exploration,  biography, 


THE  PEDAGOGY   OF  READING  379 

with  sketches  of  the  life  of  each  writer  quoted,  with 
a  large  final  volume  on  the  history  of  German  litera- 
ture." 1 

Until  this  is  done  for  English  literature,  and  indeed 
always,  more  or  less,  we  must  make  our  selections  with 
the  help  of  trained  librarians,  who  more  and  more  are 
becoming  ready  and  efficient  assistants  and  advisers  in 
directing  the  reading  of  youth.  Extended  discussion  of 
the  selection  of  reading-matter  belongs  rather  in  a  trea- 
tise on  the  study  of  literature  than  in  such  a  volume  as 
this ;  but  the  few  suggestions  that  have  here  been  made 
seem  to  belong  here  properly  in  view  of  the  widespread 
neglect  of  the  real  nature  of  youth  in  the^  choice  by  the 
schools  of  what  shall  be  read.2 

Finally,  we  may  briefly  summarize  the  practical  peda- 
gogical conclusions  which  have  seemed  to  be  warranted 
in  our  study. 

i.  The  home  is  the  natural  place  for  learning  to  read, 
in  connection  with  the  child's  introduction  to  literature 
through  story-telling,  picture-reading,  etc.  The  child  will 
make  much  use  of  reading  and  writing  in  his  plays,  using 
both  pictures  and  words.  The  picture  writing  and  read- 

1  "Adolescence,"  Vol.  II,  p.  480,  note. 

2  "  The  Children's  Hour,"  a  ten-volume  series  edited  by  Eva  March 
Tappan  and  just  issued  by  Hough  ton,  Mifflin   &  Co.,  comes  to  my 
notice  as  this  goes  to  press.     It  seems  to  fill  many  of  the  requirements 
of  a  comprehensive  and  careful  selection   of   the  best  literature  for 
children. 


380          THE  PEDAGOGY  OF  READING 

ing  of  primitive  peoples  has  a  wealth  of  suggestion  for  such 
practice. 

2.  The  school  should  cease  to  make  primary  reading 
the  fetich  that  it  long  has  been,  and  should  construct  a 
primary  course  in  which  reading  and  writing  will  be  learned 
secondarily,  and  only  as  they  serve  a  purpose  felt  as  such 
by  the  pupil,  the  reading  being  always  for  meanings. 

3.  The  technique  of  reading  should  not  appear  in  the 
early  years,  and  the  very  little  early  work  that  should  be  tol- 
erated in  phonics  should  be  entirely  distinct  from  reading. 

4.  The  child  should  never  be  permitted  to  read  for  the 
sake  of  reading,  as  a  formal  process  or  end  in  itself.    The 
reading  should  always  be  for  the  intrinsic  interest  or  value 
of  what  is  read,  reading  never  being  done  or  thought  of  as 
"an  exercise."     Word-pronouncing  will  therefore  always 
be  secondary  to  getting  whole  sentence-meanings,  and  this 
from  the  very  first. 

5.  There  should  therefore  be  much  more  practice  in 
silent  reading  than  in  reading  aloud,   the  latter  being 
practiced  not  as  an  exercise  in  reading,  but  in  the  effective 
use  of  oral  language. 

6.  Until  the  speech  habits  are  well  formed,  the  school 
should  have  much  more  of  oral  work  other  than  reading, 
than  of  work  involving  reading.     Grammar  and  other 
analytical  study  of  language  should  play  little  part  in  train- 
ing to  the  correct  use  of  the  mother-tongue,  in  all  the  lower 
grades. 


THE    PEDAGOGY   OF    READING  381 

7.  The  learning  of  real  literature  should  begin  in  the 
home  and  in  the  very  first  days  of  school,  and  should  con- 
tinue uninterruptedly,  the  literature  being  presented  by 
the  living  voice  and  with  the  help  of  pictures  and  drama- 
tization, for  a  good  while,  the  children  reading  for  them- 
selves as  fast  as  their  interest  demands.     School  readers, 
especially  primers,  should  largely  disappear,   except   as 
they  may  be  competent  editings  of  the  real  literature  of 
the  mother-tongue,  presented  in  literary  wholes,  or  as  they 
may  be  records  of  the  children's  own  experiences  and 
thoughts,  or  as  they  may  be  books  needed  for  information 
in  the  everyday  life  of  the  school.     The  children  should 
learn  to  read  books,  papers,  records,  letters,  etc.,  as  need 
arises  in  their  life,  just  as  adults  do,  and  they  should  be 
trained  to  do  such  reading  effectively. 

8.  The  children  should  from  the  first  read  as  fast  as  the 
nature  of  the  matter  read  and  their  purpose  with  it  will  per- 
mit, but  without  hurry.     Speed  drills  in  the  effective  gather- 
ing of  meaning  from  what  is  read  will  be  very  beneficial. 

9.  The  reading  of  the  mother-tongue  may  be  done  so 
as  to  discipline  the  mind  at  least  as  effectively  as  in  the 
reading  of  ancient  languages.     To  this  end  the   pupil 
should  be  practiced  in  grasping  the  essential  meanings, 
in  selecting  and  gathering  from  books  and  papers  what 
they  have  for  his  purposes,  in  ignoring  the  irrelevant,  and 
in  feeling  values  always. 

10.  Most  of  the  time  usually  given  to  "exercises"  in 


382  THE    PEDAGOGY   OF   READING 

reading  aloud,  etc.,  will  be  far  more  productive  if  spent  in 
learning  the  effective  use  of  the  library,  of  indexes,  books 
of  reference,  periodicals,  in  learning  to  make  notes,  ab- 
stracts, reviews,  and  to  make  effective  use  of  these  for  the 
reader's  purposes. 

u.  Far  more  extensive  reading  should  be  done  in  the 
upper  grades  and  in  the  high  school,  as  compared  with 
the  usual  intensive  analytical  study  of  a  few  texts  and 
authors.  Analysis  generally  should  give  place  to  synthesis 
until  the  college  period  at  least;  and  especially  at  ado- 
lescence the  individual  tastes,  even  though  capricious, 
should  be  given  as  wide  a  range  of  choice  as  is  possible. 

12.  The  reading  and  hearing  of  literature  is  to  be  de- 
pended upon  to  impregnate  the  soul  with  the  race's  highest 
ideals  and  tastes.    To  this  end  reading,  as  the  study  of 
literature,  should  be  of  what  our  race  has  voted  best,  or 
classic,  in  its  successive  stages  of  culture,  the  child  and 
youth    roughly    recapitulating    these    stages    in    reading 
interests  and  needs.     The  literature  of  Teutonic  feudalism 
and  chivalry  and  of  mediaeval  romanticism  seems  especially 
suited  to  the  nature  and  interests  of  adolescents. 

13.  Reading  of  the  mother-tongue,  learned  and  always 
used  as  a  means  and  not  as  an  end,  done  effectively  and 
as  rapidly  as  is  natural  and  possible,  done  so  as  to  serve 
as   an   effective   discipline,   real  reading,    is   to   increase 
rather  than  to  diminish  in  comparative  importance  among 
the  studies  of  the  school.    It  will  absorb  many  of  the  values 


THE    PEDAGOGY    OF    READING  383 

fiitherto  set  mainly  or  exclusively  upon  classical  study, 
and  largely  displacing  the  classics  will  become  our  most 
effective  means  of  growth  in  culture  and  ideals ;  just  as  we 
pursue  the  sciences,  on  the  other  hand,  for  information, 
for  control  of  nature,  and  for  the  peculiar  discipline  which 
they  afford. 


\ 


CHAPTER  XX 

READING  FATIGUE 

READING  makes  certain  severe  demands  upon  the 
psycho-physical  organism,  demands  which  were  not  fore- 
seen in  the  evolution  of  that  organism.  These  demands 
fall  most  heavily  upon  the  eye,  upon  the  mechanism  of  inner 
speech,  upon  mind  and  brain  in  the  rapid  functioning  of 
attention,  apperception,  association,  imagery,  feeling,  etc., 
and  upon  the  general  nervous  mechanism.  The  causes  of 
the  peculiar  fatigue  experienced  after  continued  reading 
have  not  all  been  satisfactorily  made  out  as  yet,  and  the 
writer  hopes  to  make  this  the  subject  of  later  treatment. 
Provisionally,  we  may  here  point  out  certain  functionings 
more  or  less  peculiar  to  reading  which  condition  part  of 
the  fatigue  and  degeneration  that  is  thus  induced. 

In  the  case  of  the  retina,  in  the  first  place,  as  Javal  long 
ago  pointed  out,1  the  stimulations  in  reading  constantly 
fall  on  approximately  the  same  regions  of  the  retina,  tend- 
ing to  give,  as  he  believes,  the  same  fatiguing  effect  that 
is  so  noticeable  in  after-image  observations.  In  the 
ordinary  work  for  which  the  eye  was  evolved  the  stimula- 

1  Revue  Scientifiqiie,  1879. 
387 


388  THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING 

tions  of  the  different  retinal  regions  are  varied  and  redis- 
tributed from  moment  to  moment. 

Javal  finds,  too,  that  the  eyes  have  much  trouble  in  the 
effort  to  make  the  asymmetrical  accommodations  needed 
in  near  work,  especially  in  reading  long  lines,  when  the 
fixation  point  is  often  much  nearer  to  one  eye  than  to  the 
other  and  the  comparative  distance  is  constantly  changing. 
He  considers  this  an  important  condition  of  the  fatigue 
and  strain  of  reading,  and  a  strong  argument  for  the  use 
of  shorter  lines. 

Among  the  more  unusual  and  probably  fatiguing  func- 
tionings  of  the  eye  in  reading  is,  of  course,  the  excessive 
number  of  eye-movements  necessitated.  A  page  that  we 
read  in  a  minute  or  two  has  required  perhaps  one  hundred 
and  fifty  of  these  quick  movements  and  stops,  while  the 
eye  in  ordinary  looking  at  objects  at  a  little  distance  would 
make  but  a  fraction  of  this  number.  And  not  only  is  the 
number  of  these  rapid  movements  greatly  in  excess  of  the 
normal,  but  during  each  reading  pause  the  muscles  must 
maintain,  with  rifle-aim  precision  and  steadiness,  a  "set" 
of  the  eye  which  will  prevent  blurring  of  the  letters.  That 
there  is  in  spite  of  this  a  certain  wavering  has  been  repeat- 
edly shown.  But  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  reading 
pause  requires  a  much  greater  accuracy  of  fixation  than 
would  be  necessary  in  ordinary  seeing,  and  there  is  much 
reason  to  believe  that  these  fixations  are  trying  both  to  the 
eye-muscles  and  to  the  attention. 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  389 

It  is  true  that  whenever  we  go  about,  whether  walking 
or  moving  rapidly  in  a  car,  our  eyes  constantly  move 
whenever  we  look  at  objects  that  are  stationary  or  that 
have  a  different  motion  than  our  own,  the  movement  being 
in  the  endeavor  to  keep  points  in  the  objects  fixated.  But 
this  movement,  at  least  in  walking  or  driving,  is  much 
slower  than  the  reaction  movements  of  reading,  does  not 
ordinarily  require  the  same  accuracy  of  fixation,  and  is 
of  a  more  free  and  varied  character.  When  the  move- 
ments must  be  rapid  and  frequent,  as  in  watching  objects 
from  a  railroad  train,  they  are,  as  we  know,  very  fatiguing, 
more  so  than  the  movements  of  reading.  Indeed,  as  Pro- 
fessor Dodge  urges  in  his  article  on  "The  Act  of  Vision,"  * 
it  is  doubtless  less  fatiguing  to  read  than  to  look  out 
of  the  windows,  in  a  swiftly  running  train.  The  fatigue 
peculiar  to  reading  on  the  cars  seems,  as  he  suggests,  to 
be  mainly  due  to  the  constant  blur  causing  muscular  strain 
in  the  "  vain  and  persistent  attempts  to  correct  the  blur  by 
changes  in  the  convexity  of  the  eye  lens,"  and,  we  may 
add,  by  adjusting  the  convergence.  The  amount  of  this 
eye-strain,  of  course,  depends  upon  the  amount  of  jolting 
and  vibration.  It  varies  in  amount,  also,  with  different 
ways  of  holding  the  reading-matter.  To  really  rest  the 
eyes  while  riding  it  will  be  better,  as  Professor  Dodge  sug- 
gests, to  look  at  objects  within  the  car,  or  at  any  objects 
having  the  same  motion;  and,  if  the  scenery  must  be 

1  Harper's  Magazine,  May,  1902. 


39°  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

observed,  look  forward  or  back  rather  than  to  the  side, 
and  attend  to  the  more  distant  objects.  Reading  on  the 
cars  is  always  at  least  a  little  more  trying  than  reading 
at  home,  and  is  a  neurally  expensive  process  at  best. 
Readers  must  not  be  misled  by  Professor  Dodge's 
statement  that  "the  eye  muscles  are  at  rest  more  than 
nine- tenths  of  the  time  as  we  read  " 1  into  minimizing  the 
fatiguing  effects  of  reading  in  general.  The  muscles  are 
"at  rest"  only  in  the  sense  that  they  are  trying  to  main- 
tain the  eye  in  stable  equilibrium,  which  in  reading  may 
possibly  mean  even  more  trying  work  than  when  they 
are  in  rapid  movement. 

But  doubtless  the  most  dangerous  artificial  condition 
produced  by  reading  is  the  great  amount  of  near  work 
that  is  thus  forced  upon  an  organ  that  was  planned  for 
dealing  mainly  with  objects  at  some  little  distance.  The 
tremendous  development  of  myopia  among  the  peoples 
who  read  and  are  educated  and  its  comparative  absence 
among  the  others,  its  usual  appearance  at  about  the  time 
at  which  the  reading  and  other  near  work  of  the  school 
begins,  its  progressive  increase  up  the  school  grades,  and 
its  greater  prevalence  and  degree  when  the  lighting  and 
other  conditions  are  particularly  bad,  all  point  to  reading 
and  the  other  near  work  of  the  schools  as  a  prime  factor 
in  producing  this  dangerous  form  of  degeneration.  The 
prime  cause  of  myopia  is  eye-strain,  either  in  the  children 

1  "Act  of  Vision,"  note. 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  391 

that  are  affected  or  in  their  ancestors.  The  strain  may 
occur  either  in  the  oculo-motor  muscles  or  in  the  ciliary 
muscle,  or  in  both.  Ja^al  opposes  the  common  theory 
that  myopia  comes  from  strain  of  the  oculo-motor  muscles 
in  convergence,  arguing  that  this  violates  principles  of 
physics,  and  holding  that  some  blind  persons  become 
progressively  myopic.  He  finds  the  key  to  a  truer  theory 
in  the  fact  that  some  myopics  have  power  to  change  the 
length  of  the  eyeball  as  a  means  of  accommodating  for 
distance,  instead  of  by  changingifhe  curvature  of  the  lens, 
and  this  change  in  the  length  of  the  eyeball  becomes 
permanent.  In  any  case  we  know  that  myopia  always 
means  a  lengthened  eyeball,  and  that  muscular  strain  of 
some  kind  has  produced  it.  We  are  certain,  too,  that  near 
work  is  a  main  cause  of  this  strain.  Cohn,  in  his  "  Hygiene 
of  the  Eye,"  pp.  46-53,  says:  "All  oculists  agree  that 
protracted  near  work  with  a  bad  light  is  one  of  the  circum- 
stances most  favorable  to  the  origin  and  development  of 
short  sight."  "In  looking  at  near  objects  the  accommo- 
dation is  strongly  excited,  the  choroid  strained,  the  con- 
vergence forced,  and  the  head  bent  forward."  The  strain- 
ing of  the  ciliary  muscle  in  accommodating  for  the  near 
object  stretches  and  pulls  the  choroid  and  so  induces,  near 
the  optic  nerve,  choroidal  attenuation  and  atrophy.  The 
stooping  of  the  head  in  near  work  "  produces  a  congestion 
in  the  veins  which  carry  off  the  blood  from  the  eye.  Hence 
arise  irritating  conditions  and  over  distentions  with  blood 


392  THE   HYGIENE  OF  READING 

in  the  back  part  of  the  eyeball,  and  these  may  bring  on  a 
yielding  of  the  choroid  and  the  sclera."  "Short  sight  is 
almost  always  accompanied  by  atrophy  of  the  choroid, 
which  increases,  as  has  been  proved  by  experience,  with 
the  increase  of  short  sight."  This  atrophy  of  the  choroid 
at  the  posterior  pole  "gradually  approaches  the  yellow 
spot,"  and  "  when  once  that  is  attacked  by  the  disease,  the 
central  sight  is  extinguished."  "Not  less  dangerous  is 
the  detachment  of  the  retina  from  which  so  many  highly 
myopic  people  suffer,"  this  last  being  "the  last  step  to 
incurable  blindness." 

Bonders  finds  that  "  in  youth  almost  every  kind  of 
myopia  is  progressive."  "This  age  is  the  critical  period 
for  the  short-sighted  eye ;  if  during  youth  the  defect  does 
not  greatly  increase,  it  may  become  stationary;  but  if  it 
once  develops  into  a  higher  degree,  it  is  difficult  to  put  limits 
to  its  further  advance.  It  is,  then,  in  youth  that  injurious 
exciting  influences  must  be  most  anxiously  guarded 
against."  1  As  myopia  is  not  only  very  prevalent  in  the 
schools  but  is  absolutely  incurable,  the  importance  of 
avoiding  the  conditions  which  originate  and  develop  the 
disease  is  obvious  enough.  It  may  be  remarked  that  one 
of  these  conditions  is  the  fact  that  many  of  the  children 
have  astigmatism,  due  to  a  difference  in  curvature  in  the 
two  meridians.  Myopia  often  arises  from  the  strain  in 
trying  to  accommodate,  in  reading,  to  prevent  the  blur 
1  "  Anomalien  der  Refraction  und  Accommodation,  "  p.  289. 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  393 

due  to  this  condition.  Of  course  proper  fitting  with  cylin- 
drical lenses  will  largely  remove  this  blurring  and  the 
consequent  strain. 

Near  work  causes  strain  of  the  ciliary  muscle  not  only 
by  the  excessive  degree  of  contraction  necessary  for  proper 
focusing,  but  by  the  constancy  of  that  contraction,  by  what 
Javal  calls  the  "permanent  tension  of  accommodation," 
which  he  finds  to  be  an  important  factor  in  producing 
reading  fatigue  and  myopia.  The  near  work  other  than 
reading  is  not  usually  so  fatiguing  or  so  productive  of  myo- 
pia because  the  tension  is  not  kept  so  constant.  Of  course 
in  the  ordinary  seeing  for  which  the  eye  was  evolved  the 
tension  varies  constantly. 

Javal  finds  that  this  near  work  of  reading  is  one  of  the 
most  common  causes  not  only  of  myopia  but  of  strabismus. 
The  near  work  is  especially  harmful  when  it  is  continued 
for  long  periods  at  a  time.  The  congestion  then  becomes 
very  considerable  and  the  muscles  are  strained  to  their 
limit,  both  conditions  increasing  the  intra-ocular  pressure 
and  tending,  as  Cohn  shows  (p.  109),  to  break  the  tunics 
at  the  weakest  part,  the  posterior.  Shorter  periods  of 
work  should  be  the  rule,  with  complete  rest  from  near 
work  in  the  intervals.  Cohn  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  dispensing  with  afternoon  school  sessions  often  means 
five  consecutive  hours  in  the  morning,  perhaps  with  inter- 
vals of  only  five  minutes  between  classes.  He  urges  in- 
stead an  interval  of  fifteen  minutes  after  every  hour  and 


394  THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING 

one  of  half  an  hour  after  three  hours.  "For  the  bodily 
health  and  eyesight  it  would  generally  be  better  to  return 
to  the  old  arrangement  of  three  hours  school  in  the  morn- 
ing and  two  hours  school  in  the  afternoon."  l 

Next  to  prolonged  near  work,  especially  with  small 
objects,  Cohn  finds  that  bad  lighting  is  most  conducive 
to  eye-strain,  and  next  to  this  is  bad  seats,  causing  im- 
proper postures  in  reading.  The  arrangement  in  which 
there  is  a  plus  distance  between  the  desk  and  seat,  leading 
the  pupil  to  stoop  over,  with  the  resulting  congestion  of 
the  eye,  is  especially  to  be  avoided.  The  desk- top  must 
be  at  a  proper  angle  and  the  whole  arrangement  suited  to 
the  height  of  the  pupil.  If  artificial  illumination  must 
be  used,  the  light  should  be  shaded  and  not  too  near,  the 
heat  from  a  gas  or  oil  lamp,  especially,  tending  to  heat 
the  eye,  drying  the  cornea  and  causing  general  congestion 
with  its  tendency  to  myopia.  Cohn  prefers  a  well-shaded 
electric  light,  as  being  much  cooler  than  oil  or  gas.  It 
is  very  important  that  the  light  should  be  steady,  and  it 
should  come  from  over  the  shoulder  or  from  the  side.  It 
is  important  in  writing  that  the  ink  should  be  black  and 
that  the  paper  be  placed  at  sufficient  distance.  The  school 
assignment  of  home  tasks  should  be  sparing,  especially  in 
the  earlier  years.  The  home  conditions  as  to  light,  seats, 
paper,  etc.,  are  often  very  bad,  and  much  harm  may  result 

from  doing  school  work  there.     It  is  important  that  if 

/  ' 

1  "Hygiene  of  the  Eye,"  p.  216. 


THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING  395 

the  children  are  already  myopic,  they  be  sent  to  a  good 
oculist  instead  of  being  left,  as  often  happens,  to  the  mercy 
of  ignorant  opticians  or  spectacle  peddlers.  Investigations 
have  shown  that  a  very  large  percentage  of  myopic  school 
children  are  wearing  improper  glasses. 

In  view  of  the  facts  advanced  concerning  myopia  and 
the  other  defects  of  vision,  and  the  evident  part  that  the 
near  work  of  the  school  plays  in  producing  and  aggravating 
these,  we  have  additional  reason  for  agreeing  with  Cohn 
that  the  reading  and  other  near  work  of  the  lower  grades, 
especially,  should  be  strictly  limited,  and  that  the  language 
work  here  should  be  largely  oral.  Indeed  we  have  in 
the  needs  of  the  eye  itself  quite  sufficient  reasons  for  de- 
manding a  radical  change  in  the  traditional  primary 
course.  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  eye-strain  is  in 
the  closest  relations  with  nerve-strain,  and  that  we  seldom 
or  never  have  the  former  without  the  latter.  The  weaken- 
ing of  eyes  by  the  near  work  of  the  early  grades  means 
the  weakening  of  the  entire  psycho-physical  organism,  and 
the  fact  that  these  conditions  commonly  become  hereditary 
warns  us  of  the  danger  of  race  degeneration  coming  from 
this  abuse  of  the  school. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  eye  is  incapable  of  adapt- 
ing itself,  in  time,  to  the  artificial  conditions  incident  to 
reading.  Violent  environmental  changes  have  been  fre- 
quent in  the  course  of  human  evolution,  and  the  organs 
have  met  these  changes  with  suitable  adaptations  of  func- 


396  THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING 

tion  and  structure.  It  will  be  so  with  the  new  activities 
that  are  really  required  by  our  complex  civilization.  There 
is  no  need  for  pessimism  on  this  score  if  we  regard  the  final 
outcome.  But  such  adaptations  require  time,  and  disaster 
awaits  many  in  the  transition  period.  When  we  find,  there- 
fore, that  the  danger  is  chiefly  in  the  early  period  of 
growth,  a  period  that  is  in  any  case  better  suited  to  active 
employments,  and  when  we  find  too,  that  the  danger  at 
all  points  can  be  greatly  lessened  by  proper  attention  to 
plain  hygienic  requirements,  it  is  simply  the  part  of  wis- 
dom to  act  upon  the  warning  so  sharply  given  by  the  my- 
opia and  asthenopia  which  are  so  prevalent  among  our 
young  people. 

A  second  class  of  disturbances  which  the  organism  suf- 
fers from  early  reading  are  those  of  speech,  and  these  arise 
chiefly  from  reading  aloud.  As  a  result  of  two  censuses 
of  stutterers,  taken  by  Dr.  Hartwell,  director  of  Physical 
Training  in  the  schools  of  Boston,  he  reported  that  "out 
of  every  thousand  children  in  the  public  schools  of  Boston 
at  least  seven  stutter  or  stammer."  This,  of  course,  does 
not  take  account  of  the  very  many  others  who  are  back- 
ward, hesitative,  bungling,  or  otherwise  deficient  in  their 
speech,  but  who  cannot  be  said  to  stutter.  The  causes  are 
often  the  same  for  all.  Hartwell  finds  that  the  period  of 
the  second  dentition,  at  about  seven  years,  is  a  period  of 
disturbance  in  the  nervous  system  and  is  a  period  that  is 
most  liable  to  language  disturbance.  He  thinks  that 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  397 

stuttering  "  is  largely  due  to  faulty  or  misguided  methods 
of  instruction  in  speaking  and  reading."  Clouston,  in  his 
"  Neuroses  of  Development, "  makes  "  stuttering  and  back- 
wardness of  speech"  one  of  the  prominent  neuroses  liable 
to  occur  in  this  early  period,  and  remarks  that  "it  is  dur- 
ing this  very  period  that  most  children  enter  school,  and 
are  launched  upon  intellectual  pursuits  by  being  taught  the 
rudiments  of  the  art  of  reading  aloud."  This  takes  atten- 
tion and  mental  effort,  and  "it  is  a  comparatively  easy 
matter  to  induce  stammering  among  Abecedarians."  A. 
Melville  Bell,  the  well-known  "inventor  of  visible  speech," 
called  schools  the  "nurseries  of  stuttering,"  and  wrote  in 
1866  that  "  with  a  proper  initiatory  training  and  school  sur- 
veillance, stammering  and  its  train  of  silent  errors  would 
be  altogether  unknown."  Hart  well  calls  the  elementary 
schools  "the  breeding  ground"  of  the  stuttering  habit. 
He  found  a  "marked  increase  of  stuttering  among  pupils 
of  the  primary  schools  as  compared  with  pupils  in  the 
kindergartens,"  and  thinks  it  "highly  significant  that  the 
amount  of  stuttering,  both  in  boys  and  girls,  is  greatly 
augmented  at  the  very  time  when  instruction  in  reading 
aloud  is  begun."  It  may  be  remarked,  by  the  way,  that 
from  three  to  four  times  as  many  boys  as  girls  are  found 
to  stutter  habitually. 

Hartwell  finds  that  "any  one  or  all  of  the  organs  con- 
cerned in  producing  speech  may  be  affected  in  one  who 
stutters,"  but  that  "the  respiratory  muscles  are  almost 


398  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

certain  to  be  at  fault."  Unless  these  are  set  right  the  work 
on  the  throat  and  mouth  muscles  seems  to  be  "largely 
wasted."  He  finds  that  those  most  successful  in  curing 
stuttering  have  " instinctively"  begun  with  gymnastic  ex- 
ercises of  the  breathing  muscles,  and  later  have  developed 
phonation,  then  articulation,  —  from  fundamental  to 
accessory.  The  means  of  cure  suggest  the  means  of  pre- 
vention, and  Hartwell  is  doubtless  right  when  he  urges 
that  free  play  and  gymnastics  will  prevent  much  of  it. 
He  dwells  on  the  importance  of  building  up  the  funda- 
mental system  of  muscles  before  working  hard  with  the 
peripheral  muscles,  with  the  eyes,  the  articulatory  appa- 
ratus, the  fingers,  etc.  "The  highest  level  centers,  in  the 
cortex  of  the  brain,  represent  the  most  special,  precise, 
elaborate,  and  varied  of  our  peripheral  muscles,"  and 
these,  as  Flechsig  shows,  cannot  function  so  early  as  the 
centers  for  the  more  fundamental  movements.  We  are 
thus  reminded  again  of  the  necessity  of  making  the  early 
work  of  the  school  largely  motor,  with  little  fine  work  of 
the  fingers  or  eyes  or  speech  organs. 

Of  course  in  the  case  of  the  speech  organs  the  danger  is 
not  from  the  exercise  of  the  muscles  themselves,  but  from 
the  attempts  to  control  them  through  the  higher  centers. 
Prevalent  methods  in  phonics  and  in  teaching  to  pronounce 
and  to  read  aloud  call  the  child's  attention  to  the  par- 
ticular movements  and  processes  concerned  in  speaking, 
and  this  consciousness  of  the  "how"  of  speaking  arises 


THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING  399 

whenever,  in  reading  or  talking,  the  thought  is  directed  to 
anything  else  than  meanings.  Any  analytic  work  of  this 
sort,  done  before  the  speech  habits  have  well  set,  brings 
in  its  train  the  abnormal  functionings  that  always  attend 
the  attempts  of  consciousness  to  tamper  with  processes 
which  are  meant  to  function  automatically. 

Doubtless  the  most  unusual  functionings  upon  which  the 
psycho-physical  organism  has  fallen  in  reading  are  those 
of  mind  and  brain.  Reading  fatigue  is  mainly  fatigue 
of  mind  and  not  of  eye,  though  the  eye-movements  and 
tensions  and  over-stimulations  are  conditioning  factors 
in  this  fatigue,  just  as  movements  of  one  sort  or  another 
probably  condition  all  mental  activity.  We  know  how 
frequently  and  how  closely  mental  and  neural  exhaus- 
tion is  correlated  with  painful  vision  and  especially 
with  difficulty  in  reading.  Over-use  of  the  eyes  in 
reading  and  in  other  near  work  brings  with  it  a  reduction 
of  the  general  stock  of  nerve  energy  such  as  results  from 
over-use  of  the  mind.  Doubtless  the  nervous  mechanism 
which  functions  in  vision,  and  especially  in  the  vision  of 
reading,  is  involved  as  well  in  many  of  the  more  general 
functionings  of  mind,  and  especially  in  many  of  the  mental 
processes  that  go  on  in  reading.  The  fatigue,  therefore,  of 
mind  and  eye  mutually  condition  each  other,  some,  at 
least  of  the  fatigue  that  seems  to  be  purely  of  the  mind 
being  due  to  the  abnormal  or  excessive  functionings  of 
the  eye,  —  functionings  which,  however,  may  never  come 


400  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

to  consciousness  as  such,  even  when  abnormally  per- 
formed. 

However,  much  of  the  mental  fatigue  that  comes  from 
reading  is  conditioned  otherwise  than  by  the  work  of  the  eye. 
One  of  the  most  important  characteristics  of  the  mind's 
work  in  reading  is  the  unusual  amount  of  attention  that 
is  required.  There  is  a  certain  constant  "set"  of  the 
mind  upon  the  book  or  upon  the  general  procedure  in 
reading,  having,  as  its  bodily  basis  (and  Ribot  and  the 
other  analysts  of  the  attention  have  shown  that  attention 
always  has  certain  muscular  adjustments  and  tensions  as 
its  basis),  certain  tensions  of  the  muscles  of  the  neck 
and  head  and  eye,  doubtless  with  others  that  are  basal 
to  maintaining  the  mental  attitude  characteristic  of  read- 
ing. We  notice  the  presence  and  volume  of  this  atten- 
tion set  when  we  involuntarily  relax  and  perhaps  sigh, 
yawn,  and  feel  general  relief  after  a  period  of  continuous 
reading. 

Besides  this  general  set  of  the  attention,  there  is  a 
continued  succession  of  particular  sets  and  quick  changes 
of  the  attention  as  the  mind  fastens  upon  one  after  another 
of  the  "total  ideas"  expressed  in  the  sentences  read.  The 
attention  is  mainly  upon  these  total  idea-meanings,  but 
these  are  different  with  every  sentence,  and  often  have 
sharply  varying  phases  with  the  sentence's  subdivisions 
as  well.  Now  to  be  conscious  of  things  focally,  to  attend, 
is  a  normal  functioning  of  mind,  practiced  in  ordinary 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  401 

i 

activities  without  special  fatigue.  But  in  reading,  these 
successive  sets  of  the  attention  are  so  very  numerous,  are 
forced  upon  the  mind  at  such  a  pace,  that  they  must  sooner 
or  later  become  fatiguing.  Besides  the  fatigue  due  to  the 
rapid  succession  of  apperceptive-attention  acts  concerned 
in  apprehending  the  meanings,  a  certain  variable  amount 
of  consciousness  attends  the  rapidly  succeeding  acts  of 
looking  at  the  line  itself.  The  extent  to  which  conscious- 
ness concerns  itself  with  the  actual  "looking,"  and  con- 
sequently the  extent  to  which  reading  fatigue  is  due  to 
these  visual  attention-acts,  varies  with  readers  and  with 
subject-matter.  Normally  this  visual  "looking"  should 
be  largely  automatic,  except  when  we  are  dealing  with 
some  special  kinds  of  subject-matter,  and  of  course  sup- 
posing that  the  matter  is  properly  printed.  But  it  is  a  fact 
that  very  many  readers  are  much  concerned  with  the  mere 
visual  looking  at  the  line,  and  the  rapid  succession  of  atten- 
tion-acts thus  necessitated  is  an  important  condition  of 
their  fatigue  in  reading.  There  is  no  doubt  that  for  all 
readers  the  rapid  succession  of  eye-movements  and  pauses, 
though  unconscious  in  themselves,  condition  somewhat  a 
general  state  of  mental  tension  or  attention,  fluctuating 
perhaps  somewhat  with  the  movements  and  pauses,  and 
tending  to  fatigue  when  long  continued.  Besides,  reading 
involves  certain  general  forms  of  mental  as  well  as  physical 
activity  and  attitude,  in  addition  to  the  general  set  of 
the  attention  which  we  have  mentioned,  which  repeat 


402  THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING 

themselves  constantly  and  are  doubtless  wearing  by  theit 
very  monotony. 

The  pace  at  which  mental  content  moves  in  reading,  and 
the  large  amount  of  mental  content  which  is  aroused  from 
moment  to  moment,  furnish  additional  conditions  of  read- 
ing fatigue.  There  is  a  continual  shifting  and  resetting 
of  the  kaleidoscope  of  imagery,  feeling,  and  motor  attitude, 
with  a  rapidity  of  the  flow  of  associations,  verbal  in  the 
main,  that  is  unparalleled  in  the  ordinary  life  of  observa- 
tion and  action  for  which  mind  was  developed.  Not 
only  must  a  really  vast  amount  of  mental  machinery 
function  in  the  mental  construction  of  the  words  upon  any 
page,  in  their  visual,  motor,  and  auditory  elements  and  in 
their  meaning  implications,  but  a  still  larger  number  of 
words  must  be  sub-aroused,  almost  to  the  point  of  actual 
construction,  as  associative  expectancy  points  in  their 
direction  before  the  particular  form  appears.  Large  por- 
tions of  the  mind's  total  vocabulary  may  thus  have  to 
keep  "fired  up,"  in  reading  certain  classes  of  matter,  and 
the  total  quantity  of  psycho-neural  functioning  ,is  thus 
much  in  excess  in  reading.  The  fact  that  the  content  is 
mainly  verbal  doubtless  contributes  all  the  more  to  the 
fatigue.  Words,  as  Stout  so  well  shows  in  his  Analytical 
Psychology,  are  the  most  admirable  instruments  for 
thinking  because  they  are  susceptible  of  such  nice  and 
rapid  control;  but  this  very  nicety  of  control  makes  it 
"near  work"  for  the  mind,  and  as  fatiguing  as  all  finely 


THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING  403 

discriminative  work  tends  to  be.  Words,  too,  are  con- 
ceptual, abstract,  and  their  use  in  reading  involves  more 
or  less  of  the  fatigue  that  comes  with  continued  use  of 
highly  generalized  experience. 

The  rapidity  with  which  such  thinking  may  be  done  is 
a  source  of  illusion  as  to  the  amount  of  energy  that 
is  being  expended,  and  thus  becomes  a  source  of 
danger  from  fatigue.  In  reading,  thought  may  run 
with  "seven  league  boots,"  and  we  are  apt  not  to 
have  the  natural  reminders  when  the  mind  has  done 
enough.  Of  course  such  thinking  is  far  less  fatiguing  for 
its  being  a  game  of  "follow  your  leader,"  and  much  more 
of  it  can  be  done  with  safety  than  when  the  mind  must 
blaze  its  own  trail.  But  many  sympathetic  readers  read 
almost  as  actively  and  constructively  as  though  doing  the 
thinking  on  their  own  initiative,  and  for  them  reading  is 
quickly  though  often  insidiously  reductive  of  nervous 
energy.  In  cases  of  nerve  exhaustion,  with  this  type  of 
reader,  the  feelings  of  head  strain  and  of  being  wrought  up 
with  nervous  tension  come  quickly  on  attempting  to  read, 
and  are  especially  aggravated  by  doing  hurried  reading. 
The  trouble  is  often  referred  mainly  to  the  eyes,  and 
much  time  and  money  are  wasted  in  attempting  to  correct 
these.  Eye  fatigue  and  mind  fatigue  here  have  their 
common  denominator  in  nerve  exhaustion.  We  must 
remember  that,  even  for  all  classes  of  readers,  reading  even 
at  its  best  and  pleasantest  requires  the  expenditure  of  much 


404  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

energy  and  is  reductive  of  nerve  reserve.  Though  often 
a  helpfully  recreative  employment,  it  lacks  the  freedom 
and  the  rejuvenating  effect  of  free  play.  Our  organ- 
ism is  always  working  at  a  considerable  expense  while 
taking  such  recreation. 

I  have  elsewhere  urged  the  great  advantages  of  rapid 
and  selective  reading.  On  the  side  of  hygiene  we  must 
remember  that  such  reading  will  be  more  fatiguing,  when 
continued  for  long  periods,  and  especially  in  the  first 
attempts  to  hurry  the  pace  and  vary  the  method.  It  is 
to  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  fast  rate  becomes 
habitual  as  well  as  does  the  slow  rate,  and  the  hurry  feel- 
ing then  disappears.  In  the  selective  reading,  too,  while 
certain  parts  are  thought  more  intensely,  far  more  is 
quietly  ignored,  and  the  feeling  of  values  and  using  them 
as  they  appear  becomes  a  habit  of  mind  which  functions 
almost  as  automatically  as  other  aspects  of  the  reading 
process.  The  slow  reader  who  with  painstaking  "  thorough- 
ness" works  as  hard  at  one  line  as  at  the  next  expends  so 
much  energy  in  lifting  dead  weight  and  in  handling  useless 
debris  that  his  work  is  doubtless  more  fatiguing,  to  obtain 
equivalent  results,  than  that  of  the  rapid  and  selective 
reader.  Of  course,  all  selective  mental  activity,  in  which 
the  mind  really  acts,  judges,  and  constructs  for  itself, 
whether  in  reading  or  otherwise,  naturally  causes  far  more 
fatigue  per  hour  than  when  the  performance  is  mainly 
passive.  We  cannot  get  something  for  nothing  even  in 


THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING  405 

psychic  economics.  Here,  as  everywhere,  a  hard  pace 
means  a  short  course  and  frequent  change.  It  should  be 
remembered,  however,  that  a  rapid  pace  is  not  always 
the  hardest  of  paces,  for  organisms  that  are  trained  to  it. 
And  it  is  a  safe  and  needed  rule  for  all  kinds  of  reading 
that  it  should  never  be  continued  uninterruptedly  for  long 
periods  of  time,  seldom  indeed  for  longer  periods  than 
two  hours  at  the  most. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

HYGIENIC    REQUIREMENTS    IN    THE    PRINTING    OF    BOOKS 
AND  PAPERS 

PROBABLY  the  most  important  and  most  feasible  means 
of  lessening  the  fatigue  and  strain  of  reading  is  by  bring- 
ing it  about,  so  far  as  possible,  that  all  books  and  papers 
shall  be  printed  in  such  type  and  arrangement  as  shall 
fall  within  certain  recognized  limits  of  hygienic  require- 
ment. As  to  some  of  the  requirements  which  should  be 
made  of  the  printer  we  are  still  uncertain,  and  further 
experimental  investigation  rather  than  the  present  excess 
of  opinion  is  in  order  and  is  cryingly  needed.  Of  other 
requirements  we  can  now  be  certain,  and  these  should  be 
enforced  rigorously,  in  the  printing  of  schoolbooks  and 
government  publications  at  least.  If  enforced  here,  they 
will  tend  to  extend  to  all  printing. 

The  size  of  the  type  is  perhaps  the  most  important  single 
factor.  The  experiments  of  Griffing  and  Franz  showed 
that  fatigue  increases  rapidly  as  the  size  of  the  type  de- 
creases, even  for  sizes  above  eleven  point,  or  above  a 
height  of  1.5  millimeters  for  the  short  letters  like  v,  s,  etc. 
The  various  investigators  are  generally  agreed  that  this 
should  be  made  a  minimum  for  the  height  of  the  short 


THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING  407 

letters.  Matter  printed  in  this  size  of  type  is  read  faster 
and  individual  words  are  recognized  more  quickly  than 
where  the  type  is  smaller.  Besides,  Griffing  and  Franz 
found  that  the  effect  of  insufficient  illumination  is  less 
marked  with  the  larger  type.  Preferably  the  height  of 
the  small  letter  should  be  somewhat  above  the  minimum 
stated,  though  when  the  height  is  much  above  2  milli- 
meters Weber's  experiments  indicated  that  the  speed  of 
reading  is  decreased. 

The  thickness  of  the  vertical  strokes  of  the  letters  should 
not  be  less  than  .25  millimeter,  according  to  Cohn ;  prefer- 
ably .3  millimeter,  according  to  Sack.  This  thickness  of 
the  letters  has  been  found  by  Javal  and  others  to  be  a 
very  important  factor  in  increasing  legibility,  and  thus  in 
decreasing  fatigue.  Griffing  and  Franz  found,  however, 
that  hair  lines  might  form  parts  of  the  letter  without 
decreasing  the  legibility  provided  the  other  parts  were 
thick.  They  find  it  possible,  however,  that  such  hair  lines 
may  increase  fatigue.  The  minimum  of  thickness  stated 
above  should  be  insisted  on  for  the  main  lines. 

The  space  within  the  letters  between  the  vertical  strokes 
should  not  be  less  than  .3  millimeter,  according  to  most 
investigators.  Sack  finds  .5  millimeter  to  be  preferable. 
There  is  probably  little  to  be  gained  by  increasing  the 
distance  between  the  letters  beyond  that  which  is  usual  in 
the  better  printed  books  of  the  present  time.  Burgerstein 
and  Netolitzky  would  require  that  this  distance  should  be 


408  THE   HYGIENE  OF  READING 

greater  than  the  distance  between  two  "neighboring  ground 
strokes"  of  a  letter,  and  Sack  would  make  the  minimum 
distance  .5  to  .75  millimeter.  Burgerstein  and  Netolitzky 
would  not  allow  more  than  six  or  seven  letters  per  running 
centimeter  and  would  require  as  much  as  2  millimeters 
between  words.  With  these  requirements  Sack  is  in 
agreement.  It  should  be  remembered  that  any  very  u  n- 
usual  separation  of  the  letters  of  a  word  is  distracting 
and  should  be  avoided.  These  minimal  norms,  as  stated 
by  Burgerstein  and  Netolitzky,  should  be  made  require- 
ments, except  that  possibly  the  distance  between  letters  is 
not  so  important  as  they  urge.  The  minimum  of  six  or 
seven  letters  per  running  centimeter  is  a  convenient  ap- 
proximate gauge  which  can  be  quickly  applied  and  is  not 
too  stringent. 

Griffing  and  Franz  found  that  legibility  increased  some- 
what, though  not  greatly,  with  increase  in  the  distance 
between  the  lines,  with  the  leading,  as  it  is  called.  Cohn 
thinks  it  important  that  there  should  be  a  minimum 
leading  of  2.5  millimeters,  and  Sack  requires  the  same. 
Javal  does  not  find  that  leading  increases  legibility  ap- 
preciably, and  thinks  that  the  space  used  for  this  purpose 
would  far  better  be  given  to  an  increased  size  of  letter 
without  leading.  The  leading  is  doubtless  a  mistake 
when  the  size  of  type  is  below  the  requirements  made 
above.  The  size  of  type  should  by  all  means  be  increased 
instead,  as  this  is  by  far  the  most  important  of  the  factors 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  409 

conditioning  fatigue.  However,  a  certain  amount  of  lead- 
ing should  be  required  in  schoolbooks,  at  least,  but  hardly 
more  than  Cohn's  minimum  of  2.5  millimeters. 

As  to  length  of  lines  there  is  a  general  consensus  in 
favor  of  the  shorter  as  against  the  longer  lines,  with  a 
tendency  to  favor  90  millimeters  as  a  maximum,  some  plac- 
ing the  maximum  at  100  millimeters.  The  latter  is  doubt- 
less too  high.  Javal,  who  has  studied  the  matter  very 
carefully,  insists  that  the  maximum  should  be  consider- 
ably below  even  90  millimeters.  As  already  noted,  he 
names  as  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  fatigue  in  reading, 
and  a  cause  tending  to  produce  and  aggravate  myopia, 
the  considerable  amount  of  asymmetrical  accommodation 
required  as  the  eye  moves  along  a  long  line,  the  amount 
increasing  always  with  the  length  of  the  line.  Even  with 
the  page  squarely  before  the  reader,  unless  he  makes  con- 
stant and  fatiguing  movements  of  the  head  while  reading, 
the  reading-matter  is  always  farther  from  one  eye  than 
from  the  other,  except  at  the  middle  point  of  the  line,  and 
the  reader  strains  to  accommodate  for  both  distances, 
especially  for  objects  held  so  near  as  is  the  page  in  reading. 

Against  the  long  lines  is  also  to  be  urged  the  difficulty 
and  distraction  incident  to  finding  the  place  at  each  turn 
to  the  next  line,  increasing  always  as  the  lines  are  longer. 
Besides,  the  longer  lines  require  a  greater  extent  of  eye- 
movement  for  a  given  amount  of  reading.  This  comes 
from  the  fact,  verified  by  various  experimenters,  that  the 


410  THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING 

eye  does  not  traverse  the  whole  line  in  reading,  but  begins 
within  the  line  and  usually  makes  its  last  pause  still  farther 
within,  the  reader  reading  the  first  and  last  parts  of  the  line 
in  indirect  vision.  The  amount  of  this  indentation  tends 
to  be  a  constant  amount  somewhat  irrespective  of  the  line's 
length,  and  is  consequently  a  larger  proportion  of  the  line's 
length  in  the  shorter  lines.  There  is  thus  an  important 
lessening  of  eye-work  in  using  the  shorter  lines.  Indeed 
I  found  that  readers  could  read  matter  printed  in  lines  of 
25  millimeters  in  one  downward  sweep  without  any 
lateral  movement  of  the  eyes.  With  lines  30  millimeters 
long  the  lateral  movement  was  sometimes  almost  nil, 
and  seemed  to  be  due  mainly  to  habit.  In  reading  such 
lines  in  this  way  the  eye's  extent  of  movement  is  hardly 
more  than  one-fourth  or  one-fifth  the  amount  needed  for 
the  same  matter  when  printed  in  long  lines. 

With  the  shorter  lines,  generally,  more  words  were  read 
per  fixation  than  with  the  longer  ones.  A  magazine 
column  having  lines  60.5  millimeters  long  was  in  one  case 
read  at  the  rate  of  3.63  words  per  fixation,  while  columns 
having  lines  98  to  121  millimetres  long  required  a  fixation 
for  every  two  words.  Lines  of  a  length  approximating 
60  millimeters  are  usual  in  newspapers,  and  in  my  experi- 
ments were  read  with  a  minimum  of  eye-movement.  The 
makers  of  the  modem  newspaper  have  felt  the  reaction 
of  readers  more,  perhaps,  than  have  the  makers  of  books. 
Out  of  this  experience  has  evolved  the  present  practice 


THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING  411 

of  printing  newspapers  in  narrow  columns,  the  line-lengths 
of  which  are  perhaps  as  near  the  optimum  as  can  be 
determined  at  present,  when  we  consider  that  much  shorter 
lines  give  great  inconvenience  to  the  printer. 

For  books,  also,  the  newspaper  line-length  is  near  an 
optimum  so  far  as  ease  and  speed  of  reading  are  the  con- 
ditions to  be  considered.  In  the  case  of  large  books,  where 
the  question  becomes  one  of  printing  in  one  or  in  two 
columns  per  page,  the  latter  alternative  should  undoubt- 
edly be  chosen.  For  books  of  ordinary  sizes  a  somewhat 
longer  line  may  be  used  where  this  will  contribute  to  con- 
venience or  beauty ;  but  a  book  should  not  be  used  whose 
lines  are  more  than  90  millimetres  in  length,  and  somewhat 
shorter  lines  are  generally  to  be  preferred. 

One  of  the  great  advantages  of  the  shorter  lines  is  that 
they  constantly  permit  the  reader  to  see  in  indirect  vision 
what  his  eye  has  just  passed  as  well  as  what  is  just  coming. 
Though  the 'words  of  this  related  matter  may  not  be  clearly 
perceived,  they  furnish  visual  clews  which  keep  the  reading 
range  further  extended  at  each  moment,  a  most  desirable 
condition  for  all  reading  and  especially  for  fast  reading 
or  for  skimming.  With  such  lines  a  hurried  reader  may 
glance  straight  down  a  page  with  only  an  occasional  short 
stop  and  may  yet  be  sure  that  he  has  gathered  the  gist  of 
everything. 

\     Dr.  Dearborn,  in  experiments  made  recently  at  Columbia 
University,  found  that  the  eye  makes  its  longest  pause  near 


412  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

the  beginning  of  the  line,  thus  permitting  a  preliminary 
general  survey.  A  secondary  pause  of  more  than  average 
duration  is  made  near  the  end  of  the  line,  perhaps  partially 
in  review.  He  finds  that  lines  of  only  moderate  length 
facilitate  these  general  surveys  better  than  the  longer  lines, 
and  finds  also  that  they  facilitate  a  rhythmical  regularity  of 
eye-movement,  both  being  conditions  which  contribute  to 
speed  and  ease  of  reading.  His  tests  showed  that  such  lines 
(a  little  longer  than  newspaper  lines)  were  read  at  greater 
speed  and  with  shorter  pauses  than  lines  of  twice  the  length. 

Dearborn  argues,  and  correctly  I  think,  in  favor  of 
uniformity  in  the  length  of  lines,  particularly  in  books  for 
children.  The  reader  drops  quickly  into  a  habit  of  making 
a  constant  number  of  movements  and  pauses  per  line,  for  a 
given  passage,  and  broken  lines  confuse  and  prevent  the 
formation  of  such  temporary  habits.  However,  a  slight 
indentation  every  other  line  may,  he  thinks,  be  of  distinct 
advantage.  Dearborn  thinks  that  a  line  of  75  to  85  milli- 
meters combines  a  good  many  advantages,  and  we  are 
certainly  safe  in  putting  90  millimeters  as  a  maximum, 
with  a  preference  for  lines  of  60  to  80  millimeters. 

The  smaller  books,  which  can  be  easily  held  in  the  hand 
during  the  reading,  are  to  be  preferred,  and  on  the  whole 
have  grown  in  popular  favor.  The  larger  books  usually 
have  to  lie  on  a  support  which  exposes  the  letters  at  an 
angle,  greatly  lessening  their  legibility  and  producing  the 
equivalent  of  a  material  decrease  in  the  size  of  type. 


THE   HYGIENE   OF  READING  413 

As  to  the  forms  of  particular  letters,  many  changes  are 
cryingly  needed.  However,  further  investigation  is  needed 
before  we  are  warranted  in  requiring  changes  of  the  printer. 
We  know  that  such  letters  as  /,  z,  o,  s,  e,  c,  i,  are  compara- 
tively illegible.  C,  e,  and  o  are  often  confused  with  each 
other,  and  i  with  /,  h  with  k,  etc.  This  confusion  can  be 
avoided  by  making  certain  changes  hi  these  letters,  and 
their  legibility  can  be  increased.  Certain  excellent  recom- 
mendations of  changes  in  particular  letters  have  been  made 
by  Javal,  Cohn,  Sanford,  and  others. 

However,  there  are  many  things  to  be  considered  in 
making  such  changes,  and  further  thorough  and  mature 
investigation  is  needed  before  any  letter  is  permanently 
changed.  The  whole  matter  should  be  placed  in  the  hands 
of  a  competent  specialist  or  committee  of  specialists,  to  be 
worked  over  experimentally  and  advised  upon  in  the  light 
of  the  psychology  of  reading,  the  history  of  typography, 
aesthetic  considerations,  the  convenience  of  printing,  and 
the  lessons  of  experience  generally.  Changes  should  not 
be  made  on  the  single  basis  of  experiments  upon  the  com- 
parative legibility  of  isolated  letter-forms.  A  letter  whose 
legibility  in  isolation  is  bad  may  sometimes  contribute 
most  to  the  legibility  of  the  total  word-form.  Studies  now 
being  made  of  the  comparative  legibility  of  letters  as  seen 
in  context  will  doubtless  throw  light  on  this  point.  The 
subject  is  too  complex  to  permit  the  adoption  of  recom- 
mendations that  are  based  on  study,  however  careful,  of 


414  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

any  single  aspect,  or  on  anything  that  does  not  include  a 
careful  study  of  all  the  factors.  It  is  high  time  that  there 
should  be  a  rationalization  of  these  printed  letter-forms 
that  have  come  down  to  us  in  such  a  happy-go-lucky 
fashion,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  either  the  Carnegie 
Institut  on  or  some  department  of  research  in  a  well- 
equipped  university  may  take  hold  of  the  matter  and  see 
that  the  work  is  thoroughly  done 

Among  further  printing  requirements  that  are  important 
and  that  should  be  insisted  on,  the  letters  should  have  sharp, 
clear-cut  outlines,  and  should  be  deep  black.  The  paper 
should  be  pure  white,  but  without  gloss,  the  latter  being 
especially  trying  to  the  eyes.  According  to  Cohn  and 
Sack  the  paper  should  have  a  minimum  thickness  of  .075 
millimeter. 

Paper  of  a  slightly  yellowish  tinge  is  probably  not  in- 
jurious and  is  preferred  by  Javal.  But  in  general  the 
legibility  depends  on  the  contrast  between  the  black  of  the 
printed  forms  and  the  white  of  their  background,  and 
colored  or  gray  papers  lessen  this  difference  and  thus  dimin- 
ish legibility.  Pure  white  light  gives  the  greatest  legibility. 

The  print  of  one  side  must  not  show  through  from  the 
other,  and  the  printing  must  be  so  done  that  it  will  not 
affect  the  evenness  of  surface  of  the  other  side. 

It  is  important  that  wall  charts  and  maps  should  not 
contain  more  names  than  are  absolutely  necessary  for 
purposes  of  instruction,  and  that  these  should  be  in  large, 


THE   HYGIENE   OF   READING         ,  415 

clear  type ;  or  the  most  important  names  for  reference  at 
a  distance  and  by  classes  may  be  in  the  large  type,  with 
the  others  in  type  fulfilling  the  requirements  for  school- 
books,  and  for  use  by  individuals  at  the  ordinary  reading 
distance  from  the  chart  or  map.  Burgerstein  and  Ne- 
tolitzky  advise  that  school  maps  should  not  present  the 
physical  and  political  features  on  the  same  map,  in  the 
interest  of  greater  legibility.  Names  printed  on  colored 
map  surfaces  need  to  be  in  larger  rather  than  in  smaller 
type  than  that  used  in  books  if  legibility  is  to  be  main- 
tained, as  any  other  background  than  white  means  dimin- 
ished legibility. 

The  writing  upon  slates  is  considerably  less  legible  than 
that  upon  good  white  paper.  In  the  case  of  blackboards 
the  surface  is  apt  to  be  gray  after  erasing,  and  this,  of  course, 
lessens  the  legibility  very  considerably.  It  is  important 
that  the  blackboard  surface  be  deep  black,  without  gloss 
from  reflection  so  far  as  this  is  possible,  and  that  it  be  kept 
clean,  avoiding  the  gray  effect.  Teachers  and  pupils  should 
acquire  the  habit  of  writing  on  the  blackboard  in  a  large 
plain  hand,  as  the  greater  distance  at  which  the  writing 
is  read  and  the  usually  diminished  legibility  makes  this  of 
importance,  and  especially  in  the  primary"  school  grades. 

In  stating  the  requirements  above  I  have  had  in  mind 
the  needs  of  adult  readers  and  of  the  older  school  children. 
The  younger  children  must  have  a  type  much  larger  than 
the  minima  there  stated.  The  reading  of  young  children 


41 6  THE  HYGIENE   OF  READING 

has  not  been  sufficiently  studied  to  warrant  a  final  state- 
ment of  what  should  be  required  in  the  printing  of  their 
books.  As  the  most  usable  approximate  statement  of 
what  may  properly  be  insisted  on,  and  for  the  sake  of 
uniformity,  I  quote  here  the  requirements  made  by  Shaw 
in  his  "School  Hygiene,"  with  his  illustrative  examples. 
These  requirements  are  none  too  stringent,  except  that 
sometimes  some  of  the  leading  may  well  be  sacrificed  in 
favor  of  a  type  that  is  a  little  larger,  for  the  third  and 
fourth  grades  especially:  — 

"For  the  first  year  the  size  of  the  type  should  be  at  least  2.6 
millimeters  and  the  width  of  leading  4.5  millimeters,  as  shown  in  this 
example:  — 

Then  there  is  a  turn  in  the  road. 
The  long  train  runs  over  the  bridge 
and  swings  round  behind  a  hill. 

The  children  cannot  see  it  now. 

For  the  second  and  the  third  year,  the  letters  should 
not  be  smaller  than  2  mm.,  with  a  leading  of  4  mm. 
Some  of  the  more  carefully  made  books  for  the  second 
and  the  third  years  are  printed  in  letters  of  this  size, 
as  shown  in  the  following  example :  — 

She  must  climb  the  tree.  She  held  on, 
first  to  one  branch  and  then  to  another,  and 


THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING  417 

tried  to  reach  the  golden  plums.  Her  hands, 
her  face,  and  her  feet  were  scratched  and  torn 
by  the  thorns.  Try  as  hard  as  she  could,  she 

For  the  fourth  year,  the  letters  should  be  at  least  1.8 
mm.,  with  leading  3.6  mm.,  as  follows:  — 

On  the  way  down,  an  Indian  who  was  in  a  canoe 
stole  something  from  the  ship.  One  of  the  crew  saw 
the  Indian  commit  the  theft,  and,  picking  up  a  gun, 
shot  and  killed  him.  This  made  the  other  Indians 
very  angry  and  Hudson  had  several  fights  with 
them." 

For  some  grades  succeeding  this  the  type  should  be.kept 
well  above  the  minimal  requirements  for  adult  readers. 

Examinations  of  the  schoolbooks  in  use  in  Germany, 
Russia,  and  other  European  countries,  made  at  various 
times  and  places,  have  shown  that  usually  from  fifty  to 
eighty-five  per  cent  of  the  books  came  short  of  hygienic 
requirements  American  books  are  somewhat  better,  but 
include  very  many  that  are  very  bad.  Even  when  the 
principal  part  of  the  book  is  in  good  type,  there  will  often 
be  large  sections  printed  in  a  type  so  small  as  to  be  very 
injurious.  The  dictionaries  and  other  books  of  reference 
have  notoriously  small  print,  and  those  with  he  smaller 
and  poorer  types  should  be  mercilessly  discriminated 
against.  As  Shaw  rightly  says,  "Principals,  teachers, 

2E 


41 8  THE  HYGIENE  OF  READING 

and  school  superintendents  should  possess  a  millimeter 
measure  and  a  magnifying  glass  and  should  subject  every 
book  presented  for  their  examination  to  a  test  to  determine 
whether  the  size  of  the  letters  and  the  width  of  the  leading 
are  of  such  dimensions  as  will  not  prove  injurious  to  the 
eyes  of  children.  If  every  book,  no  matter  what  its 
merits,  were  rejected  if  its  type  were  too  small,  the  makers 
of  such  books  would  very  quickly  bring  out  new  editions 
with  a  proper  size  of  type." 


CONCLUSION 
READING  AND  PRINTING   OF   THE  FUTURE 


CHAPTER  XXH 

THE  FUTURE  OF  READING  AND  PRINTING.      THE  ELIMINA- 
TION OF  WASTE 

READING  is  the  means  by  which  the  world  does  a  large 
part  of  its  work.  The  printed  page  is  a  contrivance  used 
for  hours  daily  by  tens  of  millions  of  people.  The  slightest 
improvement  either  in  the  page  or  in  the  method  of  read- 
ing means  the  rendering  of  a  great  service  to  the  human 
race.  Human  thought  has  been  busy  rationalizing.  It 
has  rationalized  the  traditional  methods  of  transportation 
and  locomotion  until  we  have  the  steam  and  electric  loco- 
motive and  the  economy  and  comfort  of  modem  travel. 
Means  of  communication  at  a  distance  have  had  the 
keenest  and  most  persistent  efforts  of  inventive  genius, 
and  the  modern  marvels  in  telegraphy  and  telephony  are 
the  results.  Even  printing  and  the  making  of  books  has 
had  attentive  study  and  continuous  improvement  until 
wonders  of  the  printer's  art  are  within  easy  reach  of  all. 
Yet  with  it  all  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  printed 
page  itself,  and  of  the  reading  process  by  which  we  gather 
its  meaning  for  so  many  hours  of  the  working  day,  have 
never  been  rationalized  in  the  interest  of  the  reader's 
time  or  energy  or  comfort. 


422  CONCLUSION 

To  take  a  trite  example,  note  the  spelling  of  our  printed 
page.  Like  the  ancient  Egyptians,  who  spelled  out  their 
words  in  letters  and  then  laboriously  added  the  useless 
picture  hieroglyph,  we  compel  "practical"  modems, 
pressed  for  time  as  they  are,  to  traverse  one- fifth  or  one- 
sixth  more  of  printed  matter  than  is  needful,  on  every  page, 
in  order  that  a  few  scholastics  may  enjoy  a  luxurious  thrill 
from  the  sight  of  the  silent-letter  relics.  Again,  we  have 
never  seriously  worked  out  to  a  conclusion  what  form  of  any 
letter  would  give  the  greatest  legibility,  and  we  have  never 
used  the  results  of  the  meager  though  very  valuable  inves- 
tigations already  made  in  this  field.  Indeed,  who  knows 
but  that  Broca  and  Sulzer  may  be  right  in  their  contention1 
that  the  extreme  of  simplicity,  in  letter-forms,  means  the 
maximum  ease  of  recognition,  recommending  therefore 

suchformsasQ    . — »  J    -J     P"  (J)  <  L.  / 

for  the  capitals,  and  /M       V  1~     n    \J      II  for  the 

small  letters.  Certainly  the  letter-forms  that  have  come 
down  to  us  through  the  ages  have  never  been  pruned  to 
meet  the  reader's  needs,  though  the  writer  and  printer 
have  made  conservative  changes  for  their  own  convenience. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  forms  can  be  devised 
which  will  be  much  more  legible  than  these  ancient  tra- 
ditional symbols.  From  the  point  of  view  of  Messmer's 

1  La  Nature,  Paris,  February  13,  1904. 


READING   AND   PRINTING   OF   THE    FUTURE          423 

analysis  of  letter-forms,  it  may  well  be  that  the  legibility 
of  words  will  be  increased  by  adding  to  the  number  of 
characteristically  formed,  or  dominant,  letters.  We  cer- 
tainly have  many  words  whose  letters  are  optically  very, 
similar,  and  these  words  would  be  much  improved  by 
such  additions. 

And  then  we  have  never  canvassed  the  possibilities  of 
improving  the  total  word-form,  for  particular  words.  We 
know  how  the  German  use  of  initial  capitals,  for  instance, 
and  the  imitation  of  this  practice  by  such  writers  as 
Carlyle,  gives  greater  prominence  to  the  capitalized  words. 
If  by  using  capitals  or  by  changing  the  shape,  size,  or  even 
color  of  constituent  letters  we  bring  into  prominence 
the  total  word-form  and  characterize  it  better,  total  form 
will  thus  come  to  play  a  still  larger  part  than  at  present  in 
mediating  the  recognition  of  what  is  read.  Such  recog- 
nition in  larger  units  favors  speed  in  reading  and  lessens 
the  strain  on  eye  and  mind.  The  special  temporary 
characterization  of  the  important  words  or  phrases  in  any 
given  article,  by  changes  in  type,  etc.,  may  also  aid  much 
in  speed  and  ease  of  reading  whenever  the  reader's  aim  is 
selective,  purposing  to  get  quickly  the  kernels  or  gist  of 
the  matter  read.  Even  the  present  somewhat  crude  use 
of  such  characterization,  by  our  daily  newspapers,  shows 
that  such  a  method  meets  a  need  of  busy  readers.  Any  ar- 
rangement which  makes  comprehensive  skimming  an  easy 
matter  will  be  of  great  benefit  for  large  parts  of  our  reading. 


424  CONCLUSION 

We  are  likely,  indeed,  soon  to  consider  the  possibilities 
of  a  total  rearrangement  of  our  printed  symbols,  in  the 
interest  of  economy  of  time,  energy,  and  effectiveness  in 
getting  thought  from  the  page.  The  history  of  writing 
has  a  wealth  of  suggestion  here  which  may  well  be  pon- 
dered. Consider,  for  instance,  the  Egyptian  representa- 
tion of  the  name  "King  Sent,"  as  compared  with  the 
narrow  row  of  little  black  strokes  by  which  modern 
printers  present  the  words.  In  the  figure, 
the  S  (vertical  hook  within  the  oblong,  at  the 


right),  N  (upper  left  wave  line),  and  T  (D  or  T,  the  hand) 
represent  "Sent,"  while  the  surrounding  oblong  represents 
"King."  Such  bunching  of  the  letters  of  words  into  a 
characteristic  total  form,  with  even  such  substitutions  of 
simple  forms,  like  oblongs,  squares,  etc.,  for  oft  repeated 
words,  would  agreeably  distribute  the  stimulations  on  t1  e 
retina,  would  permit  the  eye  to  cover  several  times  as 
much  reading-matter  with  the  present  extent  of  movement, 
would  encourage  the  more  facile  and  more  speedy  reading 
in  total  forms,  —  would  have,  on  the  whole,  advantages 
so  vital  that  the  possibilities  of  such  rearrangement  are 
at  least  well  worth  careful  consideration. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  traditional  arrangement  of 
our  words  into  straight  horizontal  lines,  already  referred 
to  in  our  introductory  chapter.  We  read  so  because,  a 
good  many  thousand  years  ago,  the  scribes  found  it  con- 
venient to  write  their  characters  that  way.  The  Egyptian, 


READING    AND   PRINTING    OF    THE    FUTURE          425 

on  the  other  hand,  found  the  arrangement  in  vertical  lines 
to  be  very  readable,  and  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  still 
prefer  it.  The  writer  made  an  extended  series  of  experi- 
ments, a  few  years  ago,1  to  determine  the  relative  speed  of 
reading-matter  printed  by  our  present  method  as  against 
reading  equivalent  matter  arranged  in  columns  of  words, 
the  individual  words  in  the  latter  case  standing  horizontally, 
one  below  the  other,  down  the  page.  The  results  showed 
that  for  reading  aloud  at  maximal  speed  nonsense  matter 
could  be  read  as  quickly  in  vertical  arrangement  as  in 
horizontal.  With  sense  matter  the  vertical  reading  was 
only  from  seven  to  ten  per  cent  slower.  In  silent  reading 
the  vertical  method  reduced  the  speed  considerably,  the 
distraction  from  the  novel  arrangement  seeming  to  have 
more  effect  in  the  silent  reading,  But  in  view  of  the  tre- 
mendous amount  of  practice  which  each  reader  had  had 
with  the  horizontal  lines  and  the  consequent  distraction 
produced  by  the  unusual  vertical  arrangement,  it  seemed 
entirely  likely  that  the  vertical  arrangement  might  ulti- 
mately give  even  greater  speed  than  the  horizontal. 
The  further  great  advantages  would  be  that  in  reading 
down  vertical  columns  in  the  Japanese  fashion  the  eye 
may  cross-section  its  words,  reading  the  lateral  parts  in 
indirect  vision  and  thus  getting  the  visual  data  needed  for 
reading  four  or  five  words  with  the  movement  now  needed 
to  traverse  one  lengthwise.  Not  only  might  we  thus 

1  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  IX,  pp.  375-386. 


426  CONCLUSION 

save  at  least  three-fourths  of  the  fatiguing  eye-movements 
and  three-fourths  of  the  pauses  as  well,  but  we  would 
constantly  be  able  to  use  the  upper  and  lower  retinal 
periphery  in  getting  far  more  data  than  at  present  for  the 
perception  of  the  immediate  context  just  past  and  just 
coming.  The  reading  range  of  each  moment  would  thus 
be  materially  increased,  with  the  accruing  advantages.  It 
is  probable,  too,  that  with  such  an  arrangement  of  printed 
symbols  there  would  be  much  less  distraction  in  "  keeping 
the  place,"  less  distraction  from  the  remotely  related 
matter  in  the  neighboring  lines,  and  greater  freedom  in 
the  choice  of  fixation  places.  Of  course,  on  the  other 
hand,  such  an  arrangement  would  have  certain  disad- 
vantages both  to  the  printer  and  reader.  But  enough  has 
been  said  to  show  that  this  is  an  important  direction  for 
experimentation  in  the  rationalization  of  the  printed  page. 
The  economy  that  may  come  from  a  more  general  and 
effective  use  of  illustrations  is  already  being  recognized, 
and  the  psychology  and  pedagogy  of  picture-printing  of 
itself  is  worth  a  volume.  What  a  development  here 
already  since  the  days,  in  the  memory  of  men  now  living, 
when  illustrated  books  were  a  rarity,  and  when  boys  were 
flogged  for  bringing  them  to  school !  Johnson  gives  an 
interesting  account  of  this  in  his  "Old-Time  Schools 
and  School  Books."  How  very  much  of  the  reader's 
time  may  be  saved  by  judicious  use  of  graphic  methods  of 
presentation,  by  charts,  maps,  globes,  the  stereopticon,  etc. 


READING    AND   PRINTING    OF    THE    FUTURE          427 

What  possibilities  for  beautifying  and  increasing  the 
effectiveness  of  our  printed  page,  and  for  easing  the  work 
of  the  eye,  may  come  from  using  the  wealth  of  suggestion 
in  ancient  and  modern  pictography,  and  indeed  in  modern 
cartooning  and  advertising. 

The  history  of  Egypt,  of  China,  and  of  other  ancient 
peoples  shows  that  they  endured  untold  wastes  for  hun- 
dreds and  even  thousands  of  years  because  they  failed  to 
rationalize  their  systems  of  reading  and  writing,  regarding 
the  traditional  ways  as  "good  enough."  It  behooves  the 
modern  world  to  appropriate  the  benefits  that  are  sure 
to  come  from  eliminating  our  own  very  evident  wastes 
in  these  same  arts.  Our  printed  page,  as  we  have  seen, 
may  be  made  a  far  more  economical  one.  And  with  this 
improved  page,  with  a  simpler  alphabet  and  a  natural 
phonetic  system  of  spelling,  much  of  the  present  waste 
in  learning  to  read  will  disappear.  A  thorough  rationali- 
zation of  the  methods  of  learning  to  read,  on  the  basis  of 
the  psychology  and  history  of  reading,  will  give  additional 
economy.  When  our  schools  take  up  their  proper  work 
of  teaching  all  readers  to  utilize  the  library  and  all  printed 
matter  effectively  and  rapidly,  and  to  substitute  real 
selective  reading  for  mechanical  plodding  at  the  customary 
uniform,  "aloud"  pace,  another  great  waste  will  disappear 
from  the  school  and  from  life.  In  this  training  the  -oppor- 
tunities for  mental  discipline  in  reading,  largely  neglected 
hitherto,  will  be  utilized,  and  certain  subjects  long  studied 


428  CONCLUSION 

mainly  for  the  sake  of  discipline  may  consequently  be 
advantageously  omitted.  Further,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  learning  of  foreign  languages,  ancient  or  modern,  will 
in  many  quarters  undergo  considerable  revision  in  the 
direction  of  economy,  when  the  facts  are  clearly  grasped 
as  to  what  constitutes  the  essence  of  natural  reading.  It 
will  then  be  even  more  clearly  and  demonstrably  evident 
than  hitherto  that  much  of  our  academic  "reading"  of 
languages  has  been  but  a  gloss  and  hollow  parody  upon 
reading,  lacking  the  free  rhythm  and  melody  play  of 
inner  speech,  lacking  the  dominance  of  all  parts  by  total 
unifying  idea-meanings,  without  the  habits  of  associative 
expectancy  that  are  absolutely  essential  for  the  control 
of  a  language  either  in  speaking  or  in  reading,  and  want- 
ing still  other  earmarks  of  real  reading. 

A  certain  waste  of  the  reader's  time  has  already  been 
lessened  by  the  improvement  in  the  style  of  writing  Eng- 
lish, since  the  Elizabethan  times  at  least.  Professor  L.  A. 
Sherman,  in  his  "Analytics  of  Literature"  (p.  256  ff.),  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  early  English  prose  had  either 
crabbed  or  heavy  sentences,  which  demanded  "  re-reading" 
or  even  "pondering"  before  the  meaning  would  reveal 
itself.  He  finds  that  "ordinary  modern  prose,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  clear,  and  almost  as  effective  to  the  understanding 
as  oral  speech."  Still  he  admits  that  few  of  us  to-day 
really  "write  as  idiomatically  and  naturally  as  we  speak," 
and  most  men's  written  language  is  very  different  from 


READING    AND   PRINTING   OF   THE    FUTURE          429 

their  spoken  language.  This  difference  is  partly  due  to 
the  slowness  of  handwriting,  which  makes  an  author 
finical,  self-conscious,  and  unnatural.  On  the  whole, 
however,  Professor  Sherman  finds  that  "from  the  lyrical 
bards  to  the  present  the  language  of  books  and  the  lan- 
guage of  men  have  been  growing  rapidly  alike."  If  this 
development  continues,  and  the  modern  habit  of  dictating 
at  a  natural  rate  to  stenographers  and  even  to  grapho- 
phones  may  hasten  it,  reading,  as  the  translation  of  what 
is  written  into  natural  inner  speech,  may  have  further 
facilitation  by  this  change,  and  perhaps  from  still  further 
changes  in  composing  to  be  suggested  from  studies, 
already  overdue,  in  the  psychology  of  style. 

Indeed  there  are  those  who  go  further  than  any  of  these 
legitimately  warranted  prophecies  of  future  economy  in 
the  time  and  effort  of  the  reader,  and  predict  the  displace- 
ment of  much  of  reading,  in  toto,  by  some  more  direct 
means  of  recording  and  communicating.  Just  as  the 
telegrapher's  message  was  at  first  universally  read  from 
the  tape,  by  the  eye,  but  has  come  to  be  read  far  more 
expeditiously  by  the  ear;  so,  it  is  argued,  writing  and 
reading  may  be  short-circuited,  and  an  author  may  talk 
his  thought  directly  into  some  sort  of  graphophone-film 
book  which  will  render  it  again  to  listeners,  at  will ;  repro- 
ducing all  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  author's 
speech,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  are  not  recorded  by 
written  language  and  which  the  reader  must  construct  for 


430  CONCLUSION 

himself  at  a  considerable  expense  of  energy.  This  latter 
proposition  is,  of  course,  as  yet,  the  wildest  of  speculations. 
But  the  plainly  possible  changes  in  the  direction  of  elimi- 
nating present  wastes  in  reading  are  so  important  that 
they  demand  the  early  institution  of  organized  research 
upon  the  various  problems,  to  determine,  at  least,  the 
ideals  toward  which  we  should  strive  in  the  making  of  our 
page  and  in  the  practices  of  reading  and  learning  to  read. 
All  these  problems  are  complex  and  demand  maturity  of 
judgment,  as  well  as  mastery  of  technique,  in  their  solu- 
tion. And  they  are  problems  in  which  the  points  of  view 
of  the  psychologist,  the  philologist,  and  the  educator  must 
receive  a  practical  synthesis.  Too  often,  as  in  the  working 
out  of  systems  of  phonetic  spelling  by  philologists,  a  system 
excellent  from  the  philological  or  logical  standpoint  has 
lacked  fitness  to  the  psychic  or  hygienic  conditions  in- 
volved in  reading,  or  it  has  lacked  the  pedagogical  adap- 
tations needed  to  permit  its  making  a  successful  appeal 
to  the  masses.  The  need  is,  first,  for  more  of  particular 
researches  such  as  we  have  had,  on  specific  problems,  to 
furnish  much  more  of  fact  and  of  suggestion.  Second,  the 
problems  of  determining  optima,  along  the  more  im- 
portant lines  already  suggested,  should  be  placed  in  the 
hands  of  committees  of  competent  specialists,  to  be  worked 
out  as  a  part  of  the  duties  of  our  institutions  for  higher 
research,  if  necessary  with  government  supervision  and 
provision.  It  is  important  that  we  should  have  before  us, 


READING   AND   PRINTING   OF   THE    FUTURE          431 

as  early  as  possible,  correct  and  authoritatively  promul- 
gated ideals  in  all  these  matters.  Conformity  to  these 
will  come  but  gradually,  but  will  come  the  earlier  for  their 
being  definitely  stated.  The  increasingly  effective  means 
for  the  dissemination  of  information  is  making  possible  the 
hastening  of  reforms;  and  the  possibilities  of  controlling 
conditions  as  to  reading  and  even  printing,  through  the 
government  supervision  of  the  practice  of  the  schools,  gives 
promise  of  early  improvement  in  conditions  when  once 
the  specialists  have  reached  final  conclusions.  When  the 
world  comes  to  put  aside  the  false  sentiment  and  traditions 
that  have  clouded  the  subject  of  reading,  and  sees  it  as 
the  everyday  means  of  doing  a  large  part  of  our  work; 
and  when  the  proposed  reforms  are  shown  to  mean 
definite  savings  of  time,  money,  and  health,  and  definite 
improvement  in  mental  habits  as  well,  practical  sense  will 
sooner  or  later  see  to  it  that  they  are  duly  installed. 


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Cattell,  J.  McK.     Brain,  Vol.  VIII,  p.  305  ff. 

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Mind,  1886,  p.  65  and  p.  531  ff. 

Mind,  1889. 

2*  433 


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Mosso,  A.    Fatigue.    Translated  by  Drummond.     Putnam's,  1904, 

PP-  334- 

Sack,  Dr.  N.  •  Die  Ausseren  Eigenschaften  unserer  Schulbiicher 
vom  Standpunkte  der  Hygiene  des  Auges.  Reviewed  by 
Erisman  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Schulgesundheitspflege,  Nos.  4  and  5, 
1898. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  445 

Sanford,  Edmund  C.  Relative  Legibility  of  the  Small  Letters. 
American  Journal  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I,  May,  1888. 

Shaw,  Edward  R.     School  Hygiene.     The  Macmillan  Co.     1902. 

Weber,  A.  Ueber  die  Augenuntersuchungen  in  den  hoheren  Schulen 
zu  Darmstadt.  Referat  und  Memorial,  erstattet  der  gross- 
herzoge  Ministerial-Abtheilung  fur  Gesundheitspflege.  1881. 


INDEX 


Abell,  Adelaide  M.,  171. 

Abnormalities    of    reading,    182. 

Abstract  ideas  represented  in  pic- 
tures, 196. 

Abstract  thinking  causes  fatigue  in 
reading,  403. 

Abundance  pictured,   196. 

Accadian   characters,    198-199. 

Accent  placed  on  first  part  of  word 
in  English,  98. 

Accommodation,  length  of  eyeball 
sometimes  changed  in,  391;  con- 
stant tension  of,  in  reading  is 
fatiguing,  393;  varies  constantly 
in  ordinary  vision,  393. 

Accuracy  of  fixation  fatigues  in 
reading,  388. 

Aerology  principle,  206;  helped 
in  word-analysis,  215  ff. 

Adams,  President  John,  244. 

Adams'  "Agricultural  Reader,"  253. 

Adler,  Felix,  335. 

Adolescence,  brings  craze  for  exten- 
sive reading,  368;  over-analysis 
especially  hurtful  during,  368,  374. 

Adolescents,  choice  of  reading  mat- 
ter for,  Chap.  XIX. 

Adult  methods  used  in  teaching 
to  read,  281. 

Advertisements  suggest  improve- 
ments in  page,  427. 

/£gean  civilization  almost  as  old 
as  Egyptian,  218. 

After-images,  from  reading,  18,  99; 
method  of  measuring  rate  by,  22; 
persistence  of,  after  reading-pauses, 
39;  experiment  with,  seems  to 
show  greater  importance  of  upper 
half  of  line,  99. 


Afternoon  sessions  advised,  393-394. 

Age  of  reading,  i,  2. 

Ahrens,  Dr.  A.,  20. 

Alertness,  mental,  increases  rate  of 
reading,  174. 

Alger,  Edith  G.,  343. 

Alphabet,  age  of,  187;  not  attained  in 
New  World,  202;  evolution  of  an, 
Chap.  XI;  importance  of,  203; 
came  by  degrees,  204;  a  difficult 
acquisition,  an,  214;  lack  of,  in 
cuneiform  writing,  212;  older  than 
the  pyramids,  213;  transmission  of, 
by  Greeks  and  Romans,  217  ff., 
222-223;  gingerbread  method  of 
teaching  the,  241,  275,  314.  See 
Letters. 

"Alphabetic  Reform  Print,"  271. 

Alphabet  method,  240  ff.;  2545. ,265  5. 
See  Method. 

Alphabets,  list  of  world's,   221. 

American     Philological     Association, 

355; 

American  Spelling  Reform  Associa- 
tion, 355. 

Analysis,  formerly  carried  to  extreme 
in  reading,  255;  not  desirable 
in  early  reading,  297;  of  sound, 
should  be  only  partial  at  ,  first, 
355;  over-analysis  especially  hurt- 
ful at  adolescence,  368,  374;  analy- 
sis of  speech,  unnatural,  353;  must 
not  come  early,  398-399. 

Anglo-Saxon  derivation  of  reading,  i. 

Animals,  drawings  of  extinct,  191. 

Aphasia  suggested  letter-reading,  71. 

Apperception,  retouching  of  retinal 
image  by,  67-68;  contribution  of, 
in  reading,  79-88;  as  preceding 
assimilation,  83;  activity  of,  in  re- 
lation to  memory-image,  105;  of 


447 


448 


INDEX 


dominant  parts,  113-114.  See  Per- 
ception. 

Arabs,  paper  introduced  into  Europe 
by,  235. 

Arnold,  Sarah  Louise,  343. 

Art,  pedagogic,  is  often  the  removal 
of  rubbish,  378. 

Articulation,  mechanism  of,  134; 
-and  elocution  taught  in  early 
readers,  252;  trained,  in  phonic 
methods,  266;  correct  habits  in, 
not  learned  by  sound  analysis, 
352;  faulty,  may  be  brought  to 
consciousness,  353.  See  Pronun- 
ciation, Speech,  etc. 

Artistic  side  emphasized  in  modern 
primers  and  readers,  276  ff. 

Assimilation,  process  of,  83-90. 

Association-habits,  cause  larger  read- 
ings to  the  right,  61;  of  languages, 
142  ff. ;  condition  extent  of  Sprach 
Umfang,  144. 

Associations,  work  best  in  original 
order,  98;  few  suggested  by  rela- 
tional words,  154  ff.;  flow  with 
fatiguing  rapidity  in  reading,  402. 

Associative  expectancy,  "forward 
push"  of,  150. 

Assyrian  cuneiform  writing  difficult 
to  read,  212. 

Astigmatism    may    lead    to    myopia, 

392-393- 

Asymmetrical  accommodation,  causes 
fatigue,  388;  required  by  long 
lines,  409. 

Attention,  expands  at  certain  reading- 
pauses,  45;  wandering  of,  during 
a  reading-pause,  48-50,  69-70, 
88-90 ;  relative  to  fixation  point,  60 ; 
attention-acts  during  a  reading- 
pause,  68-70 ;  to  objective  factors  in 
brief  exposures,  83;  to  dominating 
complexes,  88-90;  eye  movements 
and  pauses  in  relation  to  move- 
ments of,  149  ff. ;  behavior  of, 
abnormal  in  exposure-experiments, 
150;  field  of,  in  spider  story, 
157  ff. ;  to  meanings  assisted  by 
presence  of  images,  162;  to  sub- 
stantive places  in  thinking,  166; 


concentration  of,  in  reading  pro- 
duces lip-movement,  173;  power 
of  concentration  conditions  rate 
of  reading,  174;  wider  span  of,  a 
condition  of  rapid  reading,  178, 179*, 
direction  of,  in  picture-reading, 
226;  direction  of,  in  the  various 
reading  methods,  273;  habits  of, 
injured  by  too  early  study,  310; 
a  normal  activity,  400-401;  atten- 
tion-acts in  reading  are  so  nu- 
merous as  to  be  causes  of  fatigue, 
401. 

Auditory  elements,  aroused  at  sight 
of  determining  letters,  81;  in  read- 
ing, 1 20  ff. ;  and  motor  elements 
exceed  the  visual  in  reading,  154  ff. 

Automatic  reading,   149. 

Aztecs,  writing  of  proper  names  in 
rebuses  by,  205-206;  analysis  of 
words  into  syllables  by,  aio. 


B 


Babylonia,  age  of  writing  in,  187; 
libraries  of,  236. 

Bagley,  Dr.  W.  C.,  182. 

Baker  advocated  for  schools,  341. 

Barber's  Shop  lesson  in  "Orbis 
Pictus,"  257. 

Barnum,  Edith  C.,  290  ff. 

Basedow,  J.  B.,  241. 

Battledore  paddles  as  primers,  247. 

Beard,  Frank,  326. 

Beech  and  book,  i. 

Bell,  A.  Melville,  397. 

Bible,  the  material  for  an  ethnic,  377- 
378;  Bible  stories  for  children,  335, 
372. 

"Bible  Symbols,  or  the  Bible  in 
Pictures,"  326  ff. 

Bingham's  Readers,  251. 

Blackboard,  use  of,  in  the  sentence 
method,  273;  and  script,  preferred 
by  American  teachers,  276;  draw- 
ings on,  as  basis  for  reading-lessons, 
342;  requirements  for  legible 
writing,  415. 

Blake's  "Historical  Reader,"  253. 


INDEX 


449 


Blending  of  sounds,  taught  in  phonic 
method,  266,  284  ff. 

Blindness  from  myopia,  392. 

Blind  persons,  reading  of,  82;  may 
become  progressively  myopic,  391. 

Book,  reputed  connection  of,  with 
beech,  i;  probable  derivation  of 
word,  1 88;  development  of  mod- 
ern form  of,  234. 

"Book  of  Puzzles,"  326. 

Books,  cost  of,  prevented  extensive 
reading  in  early  times,  237-238; 
superb  illustrations  of  children's, 
276  ff. ;  for  children's  reading, 
291  ff. ;  bad  effects  of  too  early 
use  of,  302  ff.,  305;  not  needed  in 
the  elementary  school,  309;  inter- 
est in,  comes  spontaneously  with 
children,  329;  use  of,  in  learning 
to  read,  329  ff.;  progress  in  learn- 
ing to  know,  331;  originals  pre- 
ferred to  adaptations,  374;  large, 
should  have  two  columns  per 
page,  411;  optimum  line-length 
for,  411;  small,  are  preferable, 
412;  badly  printed,  should  be 
rejected  from  schools,  417-418. 

Boston    children,    stuttering    among, 

352.  396. 

Boys,  stuttering  among,  more  prev- 
alent than  among  girls,  397. 

Brain,  seat  of  consciousness,  hypo- 
thetically,  106. 

Brazil,  natives  of,  190. 

Breath-groups,   136  ff. 

Bridgman,  Laura  B.,  method  of 
teaching  to  read,  315  ff. 

Broca  and  Sulzer,  422. 

Brown,  Alexander,  16. 

Bryan,  E.  B.,  337. 

Budge's  "  Egyptian  Language " 
quoted,  230. 

Buffalo-hunt  pictured,   194. 

Bumstead  Readers,  word-method  ad- 
vocated in,  252,  258-259. 

Burgerstein    and    Netolitzky,  407  ff. 

Burk,  Professor,  quoted,  340. 

Burnham,  Professor,  304. 

Burroughs,   John,  374. 

Burt,  Mary  E.,  347,  372. 

ao 


Calkins,  Mary  W.,  171. 

Capitals,  percentage  of,  per  page,  95. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  423. 

Carnegie  Institution,  414. 

Cartoons,  and  advertisements  as 
examples  of  picture-writing,  227; 
suggest  means  of  improving  the 
page,  427. 

Cattell,  J.  McK.,  36,  37,  42,  54,  62, 
72-73,  84,  89-90. 

Cattell  Fall  Apparatus  described,  55. 

Central  America,  pictography  in,' 202. 

Chadwick,  Professor,  338. 

Chaldeans,  reading  of,  7;  education 
of,  compulsory,  236. 

Chart,  use  of,  in  teaching  reading, 
292  ff. 

Charts  and  maps,  requirements  of 
type  for,  414-415. 

Chicago,  primary  curriculum  in 
schools  of,  307;  methods  in,  of 
teaching  to  read,  339,  371. 

Chicago  Institute,  reading  in  the,  297. 

Children,  reading  of,  48;  perception 
of  reading-units  by,  93;  normally 
use  lip- movement  in  reading,  121- 
122;  characteristics  of  child-lan- 
guage, 123-124;  articulate  in 
thinking  and  reading,  163;  imag- 
ing of,  in  reading,  163;  conscious- 
ness of  meaning,  166;  rate  of 
reading,  180;  reading  of,  should  be 
studied,  181,  416;  develop  together 
the  spoken  and  gesture  languages, 
189;  drawings  parallel  those  of 
primitive  man,  194;  analysis  of 
word-sounds,  207;  draw  their 
thought  of  an  object,  227;  at 
first  care  little  for  order  of  words, 
227;  picture-stories  of,  228;  expe- 
riences of,  used  in  teaching  by 
sentence  method,  273  ff.;  illustra- 
tions of  books  for,  278;  natural 
language  cf,  not  used  in  primers, 
279;  want  an  outcome  to  discus- 
sions, 280;  Readers  for,  290- 
292  ff. ;  originality  of,  atrophied 
by  too  early  reading,  302-303; 


450 


INDEX 


cannot  respect  primer-language, 
305;  proper  school  activities  of 
young,  306-308;  language  of,  is 
of  ear  and  tongue,  308 ;  need  not 
read  much  until  eight  years  of 
age,  311;  learning  to  talk,  330 ; 
choice  of  reading-matter  for,  334- 
335;  not  ready  for  logical  forms 
of  most  reading-matter,  337; 
natural  rate  of  thinking  and  read- 
ing, 350-351;  read  but  little  in 
school,  367 ;  should  read  real  litera- 
ture, 372;  type-requirements  for, 

415  ff- 

"Children's  Hour,  The,"  379. 

Children's  librarians,  as  teachers  of 
reading,  366. 

Chinese,  picture  characters  of,  198 
ff.;  determinants  in  language  of, 
200  ff. ;  language  of,  has  many 
homophones  and  is  monosyllabic, 
208;  words  of,  are  not  analyzed 
to  letters,  208;  use  of  tone  or 
accent  by,  208;  writing  of,  208  ff. ; 
language  of,  remained  in  rebus- 
phonograph  stage,  208;  never 
arrived  at  an  alphabet,  209;  ver- 
tical reading  of,  and  of  Japanese, 
425- 

Chivalry,  ideals  of,  377. 

Choroid,  straining  of,  in  near  work, 
391  ff. 

Civilization,  reading  and  writing 
always  possessed  by,  187;  grows 
eye-minded,  309. 

Classical  languages,  discipline  of 
study  of,  compared  with  that  of 
formal  reading,  364. 

Classical  study,  slow  reading  may 
be  caused  by,  179. 

Classics,  really  preferred  by  young 
child,  335;  child's  early  reading 
of,  lays  foundations  for  correct 
tastes  and  ideals,  335;  Old  Mother 
Goose  and  other  classics  for  chil- 
dren, 372. 

Clinical  method  of  study,  182. 

Clodd,  Edward,  187,  200  ff.,  228  ff. 

Clouston,    work   by,    quoted,   397. 

Cobb's  Readers,  251. 


Cocaine,  25, 

Codices,  234. 

Cohn,  H.,  391  ff.,  407  ff. 

College  entrance  requirements,  should 

not     be     over-standardized,     368; 

should  not  dominate  high  schools, 

369- 

College  records  correlated  with  read- 
ing rate,  174. 

Colored   papers,   illegibility  of,  414. 

Columns  per  page,  two,  for  large 
books,  411. 

Combat  pictured,  195. 

Comenius,  256,  258,  272. 

Committee  of  Fifteen,  307. 

Committees  of  specialists  to  determine 
ideals  for  printing,  430-431. 

Common  Prayer,  book  of,  and  primer 
had  common  origin,  243. 

"Comprehensive  Method"  of  teach- 
ing to  read,  286. 

Concept,  meaning  of,  lies  in  fringe 
of  consciousness,  165-166. 

Concept  words,  imagery  from,  159  ff. 

Concert,  learning  to  read  in,  240, 
274;  reading  in,  prevents  natural 
expression,  343. 

Concrete  thinking  should  lead  to 
abstract,  363. 

Congestion  in  the  eye  caused  by  near 
work,  391  ff. 

Consciousness,  not  in  retina,  106; 
a  stream  of  processes,  128  ff. ; 
diagram  representing  the  sentence- 
consciousness,  131;  characteristics 
of,  in  reading,  149  ff. 

Consonant,  meaning  of,  214. 

Consonants,  not  the  determining 
letters  exclusively,  80;  character- 
ize word,  8 1 ;  how  produced,  137  ff. 

Context,  as  affecting  reading  range, 
56;  exposure  of  words  in,  gave 
characteristic  associations,  155  ff.; 
used  to  suggest  what  new  words 
are,  293,  296,  333. 

Control,  premature  attempts  at, 
cause  strain,  398. 

Conventionalizing  of  pictures,  195- 
196  ff.,  328. 

Conversation,   without   images,    160; 


INDEX 


45» 


impossible  in  the  dark  with  some 
tribes,  189;  pictured,  198. 

Cooke,  Flora  J.,  297  ff.,  339. 

Correlation  of  reading  with  other 
subjects,  296. 

Counters,  relational  words  serve  as, 
in  reading,  156. 

Counting  eye-movements,   18. 

Crete,  age  of  writing  in,  187;  exca- 
vations of  Sir  Arthur  Evans  in, 
throw  doubt  on  Egypto-Phceni- 
cian  origin  of  alphabet,  217-218; 
place  of  origin  of  ^Egean  civiliza- 
tion, 218;  Cretan  signs  similar  to 
Egyptian  and  Hittite,  219. 

Criticism,  tendencies  to,  often  devel- 
oped before  powers  of  appreciation, 

375-376. 

Cross  pictured,  196  and  Fig.  35. 

Culture,  progress  of,  measured  by 
its  interpretations  of  mythic  tra- 
dition, 378. 

Cuneiform  writing,  211,  212. 

Curriculum,  of  Chicago  primary 
schools,  307 ;  of  elementary  school, 
310  ff.,  336  ff.;  history  of  pictog- 
raphy has  suggestions  for  new 
primary,  338-339- 

Cursive  script  of  Romans,  223. 

Cypriote  or  Cyprus  syllabary  similar 
to  the  Cretan,  219. 


D 


D,  origin  of  letter,  213. 

Dearborn,    Dr.    Walter    F.,    43-50, 

176,  411  ff. 
Delabarre,  E.  B.,  20. 
Deniker,  226  ff. 
Dentition,    period    of    second,    352, 

396  ff. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  on   discovery 

of  printing,  238. 
Determining      letters,       79-81.     See 

Dominating  Letters  and  Letters. 
Determinants,    in    picture-languages, 

200  ff.,  209. 
Devices,   for  teaching   the   alphabet, 

241;    for  using  various  methods, 


275;  and  technique  not  used  in 
learning  to  talk,  330.  See  Meth- 
ods. 

Dewey,  John,  ideal  of,  used  in  Horace 
Mann  School,  290;  article  by, 
cited,  304  ff. 

Diacritical  marks,  need  of,  shows 
deficiency  of  alphabet,  222;  used 
to  supply  deficiencies  of  alphabet, 
269  ff.;  systems  of,  269  ff.,  354  ff. ; 
in  Pollard  system,  282  ff.;  in 
Ward  method,  285  ff. ;  not  used 
in  Gordon  method,  287,  294; 
learning  of,  postponed,  299;  page 
should  ordinarily  be  free  from, 
350-351;  needed  for  use  of  dic- 
tionary, 351;  requirements  of  a 
good  system  of,  357. 

Dictation   habit   modifies  style,   429. 

Dictionary,  may  be  made  by  children, 
299;  use  of,  requires  phonics  and 
diacritical  marks,  351-354  ff  " 
notoriously  small  print  in,  417. 

Differential  psychology,  182.  Set 
Individual  differences. 

Discipline,  formal  reading  as,  10,  n; 
from  reading  compared  with  dis- 
cipline from  study  of  classical 
languages,  364. 

Distance  of  reading-matter  as  affect- 
ing number  of  eye-movements 
and  pauses,  29. 

Distraction  in  turning  to  next  line, 
409. 

Dodge,    Raymond,    17,    20-22,    34, 

37.  39.  "I,  389-39°- 

Dominating  letters  and  complexes, 
82-91;  not  spatially  arranged  at 
first,  108-109;  as  nrgt  factors  in 
recognition,  113-116;  their  place 
in  the  reading  consciousness,  149. 
See  Letters  and  Determining 
letters. 

Donders,  Professor,  392. 

Dorians,  Mycenee  conquered  by,  218. 

Dramatization  in  reading  English, 
370. 

Drawing,  as  related  to  gestures,  189- 
191;  of  children,  parallels  that 
of  primitive  man,  194;  primi- 


452 


INDEX 


tive,  "hits  off"  the  essential,  195; 
used  in  teaching  to  read,  273, 
319  ff.,  328  ff. ;  in  correlation 
with  early  reading,  338  ff. ;  inter- 
pretative, 344-345.  See  Pictures. 
Dualism,  106. 


Ear,  the  nearest  gateway  to  child- 
soul,  334.  See  Auditory. 

Easter  Islanders,  reading  and  writing 
of,  231. 

Eating  pictured,  196. 

Education,  aided  by  differential 
psychology,  182;  compulsory,  of 
free  Chaldeans,  236. 

Educators,  views  of  representative, 
on  early  reading,  Chap.  XV. 

Egger,  V.,  123,  132,  164. 

Egypt,  age  of  writing  in,  187;  sys- 
tem of  writing  as  a  type,  188; 
picture-metaphors  of,  200;  deter- 
minants in  language  of,  200; 
development  and  characteristics 
of  writing  of,  213  ff.;  alphabet 
early  attained  in,  213  ff. ;  analysis 
of  syllable  in,  213;  writing  of  vow- 
els and  consonants,  214-215;  rela- 
tions of,  with  early  Greece,  218; 
hieroglyphs  arranged  vertically  and 
horizontally,  230;  vast  literature 
and  great  libraries  of,  237;  use  of 
pictures  and  words  together,  328; 
wasted  characters  as  in  modern 
spelling,  422. 

Elementary  school  may  largely  dis- 
pense with  books,  329  ff. 

Elements,  visual,  exceeded  by  audi- 
tory and  motor  in  reading,  154  ff. 

Elephant,  drawings  of  woolly-haired, 
192. 

Eliot,  President,  253,  367. 

Elizabethan  style,  modern  writing 
shows  improvement  upon,  428- 
429. 

Emphasis,  dependence  of,  on  famil- 
iarity with  grammatical  construc- 
tion, 130  ff. 


English  printers,  running  Italian 
script  selected  by,  224. 

English  study,  materials  for,  376  ff. 

English  teaching,  too  much  analysis 
in,  353,  367-368. 

Environment,  language,  of  young 
child,  330-331. 

Equilibrium  of  eye-muscles,  main- 
tenance of,  during  a  reading-pause, 
390. 

Erdmann  and  Dodge,  20  ff.,  37,  52, 
61-64,  73,  75,  9°,  151- 

Esquimau  writing,  228. 

Essential,  "hit  off"  in  primitive 
drawings,  195;  practice  in  choos- 
ing the,  trains  the  judgment,  364. 

Evans,  Sir  Arthur,  218  ff. 

Everett,  Cora  E.,  275. 

Evolution,  did  not  prepare  eye  and 
mind  for  reading,  8,  387 ;  of  letter- 
forms,  225;  of  the  printed  page, 
Chap.  XII;  will  adapt  eye  to 
modern  conditions,  395-396. 

Exchange,  picture-character  for,  226. 

Expectancy,  aroused  by  relational 
words,  154  ff. 

Expectation-habits,  in  language,  142 
ff. ;  in  reading,  157-158. 

Experiences,  use  of  children's,  for 
reading  lessons,  273  ff.,  297  ff., 

339- 

"Experimental  Phonetics,  Elements 
of,"  quoted,  134  ff. 

Experiments,  upon  interpretation, 
imagery,  etc.,  152  ff.;  by  Ribot, 
on  imagery,  159;  needed  to  deter- 
mine norms  for  type,  406. 

Experiment  schools,  a  better  pri- 
mary course  will  be  worked  out 
by,  306. 

Exposure,  optimum  time  of,  54, 
90  ff. ;  advantages  of  brief,  82-83; 
of  unrelated  words  caused  inner 
pronunciation,  118;  experiments, 
150,  152  ff. 

Expression,  teaching  to  read  with,  324. 

Eye,  work  of,  in  reading,  Chap.  II; 
requires  a  reconstruction  of  pri- 
mary course,  395;  will  gradually 
adapt  itself  to  reading,  395-396; 


INDEX 


453 


does  not  traverse  whole  line  in 
reading,  410. 

Eyeball,  length  of,  sometimes  changed 
in  accommodation,  391. 

Eye-fatigue,  lessening  of,  by  improv- 
ing page,  1 1 ;  as  related  to  mental 
fatigue,  399  ff.  See  Fatigue. 

Eye-movements,  counting  of,  18; 
unconscious,  23;  graphic  record 
'  of,  26,  28;  guidance  of  return, 
29;  and  pauses  per  line,  29  ff.; 
relation  of  attention  to,  and  to  fixa- 
tions, 47;  unconscious,  produce 
illusions  as  to  reading  range,  53; 
and  pauses  in  relation  to  move- 
ments of  the  attention,  149  ff.; 
habits  of,  176;  excessive  number 
of,  in  reading  causes  fatigue,  388; 
in  traveling,  389;  and  pauses 
condition  a  state  of  mental  ten- 
sion, 400. 

Eye-muscles  not  at  rest  during  read- 
ing-pauses, 390. 

Eye-pauses,  location  of,  21,  30,  31, 
47,  48;  duration  of,  32;  persis- 
tence of  after-image  after,  39; 
attention  expands  at  certain,  45; 
attention  acts  during,  68-70;  at- 
tention wandering  during,  69-70, 
88-90;  initial,  are  the  longest, 
178,  411-412;  fatigue  in  reading 
caused  by,  as  well  as  by  eye-move- 
ments, 388;  secondary  long  pause 
near  end  of  line,  412. 

Eye-strain    related    to    nerve-strain, 

395  «• 
Eye-voice  separation,  145  ff. 


Fairy  tales,  value   of,    for   children, 

372  ff. 
Familiarity  with  reading  matter,   as 

determining    eye-voice    separation, 

145- 

Families  of  syllables,  etc.,  283,  287. 
Family,  reading  aloud  as  means  of 

uniting  the,  334. 
Farnham,  272-273. 


Fatigue  from  reading,  19,  29,  48, 
49,  Chap.  XX;  causes  of,  387- 
388;  from  constant  tension  of 
accommodation,  393;  is  usually 
psychic,  399;  as  conditioned  by 
attention-acts,  400,  401;  causes  of, 
401-409.  See  Eye-fatigue. 

Favorite  stories  and  poems,  reading 
of,  295. 

Fechner,  H.,  275. 

Feelings,  of  relation,  130;  vague, 
representing  forgotten  words  and 
phrases,  153;  "forward  feeling" 
in  reading,  156  ff. ;  include  the 
consciousness  of  meaning,  163; 
unanalyzable,  163;  training  of, 
by  reading,  377. 

Fence,  fatigue  from  counting  pickets 
on,  29. 

Fetich,  the  book  a,  2 ;  reading  a,  303, 
304  ff. ;  of  Greek  is  passing,  304. 

Feudalism  literature  advised  for 
adolescents,  376  ff. 

Fibel,  German  word  for  primer, 
meant  Bible,  242. 

Field  of  clear  vision,  52.  See  Read- 
ing range. 

Finnic  language,  few  consonants  in, 
221. 

Fish,  drawing  of,  in  pictograph  for 
Nineveh,  199. 

Fixation,  fluctuations  of,  53,  60; 
relation  of,  to  attention,  477.  See 
Eye-pauses. 

Fixation  point  in  reading,  30-31; 
relation  of  attention  to,  60. 

Flavor  of  a  great  book  elevates  the 
personality,  365. 

Flax  and  linen  not  used  among 
Greeks  and  Romans,  238. 

Flechsig,  398. 

Flournoy,  165. 

Fluent  reading,  how  developed,  292. 

Folk-soul  appealed  to  by  books,  4. 

Foreigners,  diacritical  marks  an  aid 
to,  358. 

Foreign  language,  reading  of,  19, 
21,  147-148;  learning  of,  in  pri- 
mary school,  309 ;  what  constitutes 
real  reading  of,  428. 


454 


INDEX 


Form  in  reading  as  in  swimming, 
179. 

Forsyth,  W.,  238-239. 

"Forward  push"  of  associative  ex- 
pectancy in  reading,  150,  155  ff. 

Fovea,  size  of,  66. 

Francis  W.  Parker  School,  297  ff. 

French,  sentence  division  in,  138. 

Fringe  of  consciousness,  161;  carries 
the  meaning,  182. 

Fuller's  "Illustrated  Primer,"  319  ff. 

Fundamental  movements  should  be 
learned  before  accessory,  316. 

Fundamental  muscles  need  develop- 
ment first,  398. 

Funk  and  Wagnalls'  Readers,  268  ff., 
288-289,  355- 

Fusion,  35,  36,  39-43;  of  meaning 
with  word-sound,  164. 


Galton,  Francis,  24. 

Games  and  plays,  use  of,  in  teaching 
to  read,  299,  322  ff.  See  Play. 

Gedike's  primer,   258. 

German  literature  edited  for  adoles- 
cents, 378-379. 

German  printers,  illegible  Gothic 
script  chosen  by,  224. 

Gesture-languages,  189-190. 

Gestures,  were  the  first  pictures, 
189;  much  the  same  for  all  chil- 
dren and  all  peoples,  191;  pictures 
representing,  196  ff. 

Gingerbread  method  of  teaching  the 
alphabet,  241. 

Glasses,  are  often  improperly  pre- 
scribed, 395. 

Glides  in  breath-groups,   136-138. 

God  Rock,  Indian,  193. 

Golden  Age  of  race  not  devoted  to 
reading,  303. 

Goldscheider  and  Muller,  54,  75-82, 
102-103,  146,  354. 

Gordon,  Emma  K.,  286. 

Government  publications,  hygienic 
printing  should  be  enforced  for, 
406. 


Government  supervision,  of  research, 
430;  of  school  practice  in  reading 
and  printing,  431. 

Graduate  students,  reading  rate  of, 
174,  177- 

Grammar,  the  old  age  of  language, 
367- 

Graphic  methods,  reader's  time 
saved  by,  426. 

Graphophone  books,  possibility  of, 
429. 

Graphophone  experiments  on  sen- 
tence-utterance, 133  ff. 

Greece,  far  older  than  was  supposed, 
218;  an  inscription  dating  from 
early,  232;  amount  of  reading  in, 
and  in  Rome,  237. 

Greek  alphabet,  recognition  of,  103; 
derivation  of,  219. 

Greeks,  analysis  of  word-sounds  by, 
223;  early,  read  from  right  to 
left,  231;  music  and  gymnastics 
made  the  chief  primary  subjects 
by  i  307;  were  relatively  ear- 
minded,  309. 

Griffing  and  Franz,  406  ff. 

Growth  will  bring  much  that  we 
strive  for,  303. 


H 


Habit,  hierarchy  of,  112;  of  reading 
increased  with  invention  of  print- 
ing, 239,  297;  of  eye-movement 
prevented  by  broken  lines,  412. 
See  Reading. 

Habit-forming  epoch,   308. 

Hall,  President  G.  Stanley,  255,  304, 
363,  365,  374  ff- 

Halves  of  words,  relative  importance 
of  right  and  left,  96-98. 

Hartwell,  Dr.  E.  M.,  396  ff. 

"Heart  of  Oak"  Readers,  254,  345. 

Heating  the  eye  tends  to  myopia, 
394- 

Helmholtz,  53,  66. 

Henry  the  Eighth's  primers,  242-243. 

Hereditary  degeneration  from  eye- 
strain,  395. 

Hierarchy  of  habits,  112. 


INDEX 


455 


Hieroglyphic  alphabet  of  Egypt,  216. 

High  schools  should  not  be  domi- 
nated by  college  requirements,  369. 

Hirn,  Yrjo,  190-191. 

History,  of  reading,  needed  for  deter- 
mination of  methods,  9-10,  328; 
of  writing  has  suggestions  for 
improving  page,  424.  See  Evolu- 
tion, etc. 

Hittite  arrangement  of  written  char- 
acters, 231. 

Hittite  signs  similar  to  Egyptian 
and  Cretan,  219. 

Hoffman,  A.  H.,  195  ff.,  231. 

Hogarth,  218. 

Holocain,  25. 

Holt,  E.  B.,  38,  41. 

Home,  learning  to  read  at,  274-275, 
Chap.  XVI,  311,  332,  379;  read- 
ing of  children  who  learn  at,  330; 
question  of  school  or,  for  young 
children,  336. 

Home  reading  for  school  children, 
291  ff.,  297-298. 

Home  tasks  and  eye-strain,  394  ff. 

Homer,  tablets  in  time  of,  234. 

Homophones,  in  Chinese  language, 
208;  in  cuneiform  writing,  212. 

Horace  Mann  School,  reading  meth- 
ods in,  290  ff. 

Horn  Book,  described,  244  ff.;  illus- 
trated, 246. 

Humboldt,  W.  von,  190. 

Hunter,  record  of  starving,  192-193. 

Hygiene,  requirements  of,  in  read- 
ing, Chap.  XX ;  in  printing,  Chap. 
XXI. 

Hyphen,  when  used  with  compounds, 
115;  came  late,  233. 


Ickelsamer,  alphabet  method  modi- 
fied by,  255. 

Idealism,    106. 

Idealization  of  illustrations  in  chil- 
dren's primers,  276  ff. 

Weals,  need  of  determining,  for 
reading  and  printing,  430-431. 


Ideas,  too  numerous  for  picture 
symbols,  201. 

Ideograms  developed  to  phonograms, 
205. 

Illumination,  effect  of  insufficient, 
less  marked  with  large  type,  407 
See  Light. 

Illusion,  as  to  field  of  clear  vision, 
51-53;  of  simultaneity  in  per- 
ception, 88-90. 

Illustrations,  for  children's  books, 
278;  of  reading  lessons  by  children, 
298-299;  economy  from  use  of, 
426.  See  Pictures. 

Imagery,  at  beginning  of  sentence- 
utterance,  130;  from  words  and 
phrases  when  exposed,  154  ff.; 
from  concept  words,  159  ff. 

Images,  presence  of,  aids  attention 
to  meanings,  162. 

Imagination  of  children,  372-373. 

Imitation,  language  learned  by,  124- 
126;  sometimes  determines  rate 
of  reading,  179;  of  visible  qualities 
by  the  picture-language  and  ges- 
ture-language, 190;  fidelity  in, 
not  essential  in  primitive  and  in 
children's  drawings,  194;  em- 
ployed in  picturings  of  letter- 
sounds,  255,  283;  method  of,  in 
reading,  274;  teaching  of  letter- 
sounds  by,  281  ff.,  286-287,  326, 
352-353;  method  of,  in  learning 
to  read  and  learning  to  talk,  330; 
gives  us  most  of  our  habits,  365; 
discipline  of  reading  partially  due 
to,  365. 

Implicit  apprehension,  160  ff. 

Incidental  learning  to  read,  297  ff. 

Indentation  of  line,  21,  23,  30,  410; 
greater  in  second  readings,  178; 
slight  variations  in  line-length 
may  assist  the  reader,  412. 

Indians  derived  pictures  from  ges- 
tures, 191. 

"Indifferent"  letters,  79. 

"Indifferent"  word-form,  80,  85. 

Indirect  vision,  first  and  last  parts 
of  line  read  in,  410. 

Individual  differences,  in  perceiving 


456 


INDEX 


92,  103,  no,  114,  115-116;  in 
imagery,  154  ff.,  156  ff.;  in  rate  of 
reading,  170,  361;  in  reading, 
181-184,  403;  in  the  consciousness 
of  meaning,  183-184;  in  teacher's 
use  of  reading  methods,  295. 

Individuality  of  words,  95. 

Inhalation  pauses  in  speech,  136-137. 

Inner  speech,  24;  usually  present 
in  reading,  117;  characteristics 
of,  12 1 ;  slurred  in  rapid  reading, 
140-141;  follows  behind  the  eye, 
144  ff. ;  enlarges  visual  range, 
144;  span  of,  144;  in  reading 
words  and  phrases,  153  ff.;  accu- 
rate control  of,  162-163;  used  to 
get  meanings,  164;  as  hindering 
speed  of  reading,  172;  only  par- 
tially present  in  very  rapid  reading, 
181.  See  Language  and  Speech. 

Inscriptions,  Roman  letters  used 
for,  222. 

Interpretation  and  meaning,  Chap. 
VIII.  See  Meaning. 

Introspection  method  of  studying 
reading  consciousness,  150. 

Irrelevant  stimuli,  ignored  in  read- 
ing, 39,  40,  41. 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  370. 

Itzcoatl,  rebus  for,  205. 


Jacotot,  Jean  Joseph,  258. 

James,  William,  106,  128-133,    J42> 

163,  165,  168,  350. 
Jansenists,  phonetic  system  of,   258, 

366. 
Japanese,  writing  of,  210;    have  two 

syllabaries,    211;     did    not    arrive 

at  an  alphabet,  211. 
Japanese    and    Chinese    methods   of 

learning  to  read,  315  ff. 
Javal,  Emile.  16,  18,  27,  49,  72,  99, 

Chaps.  XX-XXI. 
"Johnny  Story,"   281  ff. 
Johnson,   Clifton,   246,  256  ff.,  426. 
Joseph,  Story  of,  pictured,  228. 
Joubert,   132. 
judd,  Charles  H.,  207,  222.  223,  224. 


Keagy's   Pestalozzian    Primer,    B4o-« 

250. 

Kehr,  K.,  242. 
Kindergartens    have    less    stuttering 

than  primary  schools,  397. 
"King  Sent"   inscription,   213,   424. 


Lamansky,  S.,  eye-measurements  by, 

22. 

Lamare,    18. 

Landolt,  19,  20,  49. 

Lang,  Andrew,  372. 

Language,  differentiation  of  parts 
of  speech,  125  ff. ;  ancient  and 
modern,  compared,  125-126;  dif- 
ferences of  written  from  spoken, 
126,  428-429;  as  a  "movement 
of  fixation,"  162;  spoken,  arose 
with  gesture-language,  189  ff.; 
spoken,  kept  pace  with  needs  of 
civilization,  203;  American  pro- 
nunciation made  uniform  by  Web- 
ster's Spelling  Book,  248;  of 
children  is  of  ear  and  tongue,  308; 
and  literature  as  they  should  be 
taught  in  the  elementary  school, 
309;  interests  at  adolescence,  368. 
See  Sentence,  Speech,  etc. 

Languages,  associative  habits  of,  142 
ff . ;  differ  in  completeness  of  analy- 
sis to  vowels  and  consonants,  221. 

Latin  study  may  be  replaced  by 
study  of  classics  in  the  mother- 
tongue,  369. 

Lead,  tickets  of,  for  gladiatorial  shows, 

239- 
Leading,  requirements  as  to,  408  ff. ; 

may    be    sacrificed    in    favor    of 

larger  type,  416. 

Learning  of  foreign  languages,  428. 
Learning   to   read,    very   difficult   in 

China,    209;     mechanical    devices 

for,     242;      wastes     in,     427;    at 

home,  Chap.  XVI.     See  Methods. 
"Legato"    and    "staccato"    reading, 

181;    "legato"  reading  taught  by 

sentence-method,   274. 


INDEX 


457 


Legible  writing,  requirements  for, 4 15. 

Legibility,  of  upper  and  lower  halves 
of  line,  18;  improvements  in, 
needed  in  systems  of  diacritical 
marks,  355-357;  requirements  for, 
406  ff. ;  lessened  when  book  is 
supported  at  an  angle,  412;  may 
be  increased  by  changes  in  letter- 
forms,  413;  of  letters,  not  the 
same  in  isolation  and  in  context, 
413;  depends  on  black- white  con- 
trast, 414;  studies  of,  incomplete 
and  little  used,  422. 

Leigh,  Edwin,  266  ff.;  "Pronounc- 
ing Orthography"  of,  260. 

Leland  Stanford  requirements  in 
English,  375. 

Lessons  in  reading,  length  of,  292. 

Letters,  reading  by,  68,  81-82;  theory 
of  reading  by,  suggested  by  apha- 
sia, 71,  and  founded  on  assump- 
tion of  uninterrupted  eye-move- 
ment, 71-72;  differ  in  recogni- 
tion-time and  in  legibility,  84; 
projecting  above  and  below  the 
line,  91,  99;  number  of  small,  in 
page,  93;  analysis  of,  94-96; 
terminal,  more  legible,  97;  rate 
of  reading  not  proportional  to 
number  of,  100-101;  part  of, 
in  perception,  109-116;  factors 
producing  consciousness  of,  in; 
derivation  of,  188;  over-conscious- 
ness of,  206;  final  letter  sometimes 
attached  to  the  following  word, 
233;  should  be  taught,  313;  do 
not  fully  indicate  pronunciation 
of  words,  354  ff. ;  minimal  re- 
quirements of  type  for,  406  ff. ; 
unnecessary  silent,  used  in  spell- 
ing, 422;  German  use  of  initial 
capital,  423. 

Letter-forms,  as  characterizing  word, 
93-96;  originally  varied  with 
writers,  224;  letters  contain  rudi- 
ments of  their  stages  of  growth, 
225;  changes  needed  in,  413  S.  • 
simplicity  of,  may  facilitate  recog- 
nition, 422;  have  never  been 
adapted  to  reader's  needs,  422. 


Letter-reading,  suggested  by  apha 
sia,  71. 

Letter-sound,  depends  on  context 
of  letter,  138;  represented  by 
constant  mark  in  Shearer  system, 
270-271;  plays  a  part  in  German 
reading,  353;  need  not  come  to 
consciousness  in  reading,  354. 

Letter-writing    in    learning    to    read, 

315,  3i8-3i9.  338,  37i- 

Levels  of  nervous  system  develop 
at  different  times,  398. 

Librarians,  will  advise  about  choice 
of  reading  for  children,  335,  379; 
as  teachers  of  reading,  366. 

Libraries,  Babylonian,  236;  Egyp- 
tian, 237.  ^ 

Library,  derivation  of  word,  188; 
growth  of  child's  acquaintance 
with,  331;  readers  should  be 
taught  the  effective  use  of,  365, 
427;  is  the  reading  laboratory, 
365-366;  provides  for  story-telling 
and  readings  to  children,  366; 
books  of,  should  be  school  Readers, 
374- 

Light  pictured,  199. 

Light,  insufficient,  causes  myopia, 
391;  apt  to  be  bad  at  home,  394; 
conditions  eye-strain,  394;  white, 
gives  greatest  legibility,  414.  See 
Illumination. 

Line,  losing  the,  29;  indented  more 
at  right,  30;  length  of,  44-46; 
reading  upper  and  lower  halves 
of,  99;  eye  does  not  traverse 
whole,  in  reading,  410. 

Lines,  rate  of  reading  increased  by 
short,  and  by  uniform  length  gf, 
177;  development  of  arrangement 
into,  229  ff. ;  arrangement  of, 
into  columns,  234;  asymmetry 
of  accommodation  lessened  by 
short,  388;  requirements  as  to 
length  of,  409  ff. ;  arrangement  of, 
rests  on  tradition,  424. 

Lip-movement,  121-122,  173,  175. 
See  Inner  speech. 

Literary  wholes  should  be  read,  253, 
373- 


INDEX 


Literature,  has  become  the  main 
subject-matter  of  Readers,  253; 
study  of,  should  begin  very  early, 
345;  brilliant,  when  people  wrote 
as  they  talked,  369$  importance 
of  hearing  as  well  as  reading,  370; 
first  readings  in,  372  ff. ;  old  Readers 
gave  little  acquaintance  with,  373; 
for  adolescents,  needs  editing,  378. 

Livingstone,   David,   2. 

Location,  consciousness  of,  in  read- 
ing, 158. 

"Looking"  at  line  should  be  auto- 
matic, 401. 

Lough,   Dr.,   20. 

Lukens,  H.  T.,  227-228. 

Luther's  primer,  243. 

M 

M,  derivation  of  letter,  219  ff. 

Macula  lutea,  size  of,  66. 

Magazine  article,  number  of  pauses 
per  line  in  reading,  30. 

Mann,  Horace,  253 ;  argued  for  word- 
method,  259. 

Maps  preferably  do  not  present 
physical  and  political  features 
together,  415. 

March,  Francis  A.,  301. 

Marks.     See  Diacritical  marks. 

Materials  for  writing,  determined 
character  of  letters,  223;  tended 
to  develop  serial  arrangement  of 
characters,  229. 

Mathematics  ill-fitted  to  children,  308. 

Mayas,  wrote  words  in  rebuses,  207; 
analyzed  syllables,  210;  developed 
a  few  alphabetic  characters,  221. 

McGuffey's  Readers,   252. 

Meaning,  first  welds  letters  together 
in  perception,  87,  161;  usually  in 
upper  parts  of  objects,  99;  domi- 
nates perception,  116;  inheres 
in  spoken  language,  123;  as  guide 
to  sentence-utterance,  123  ff.,  140; 
as  expressed  by  pitch,  accent, 
modulation  of  voice,  etc.,  123  ff. ; 
as  felt  in  different  parts  of  sen- 
tence, 131-133;  guides  move- 


ments in  throwing,  139;  felt  com- 
pletely only  in  sentence  utterance, 
146-147;  of  words  and  sentences, 
158  ff. ;  not  in  the  image,  160; 
attention  to,  assisted  by  presence 
of  images,  162 ;  lies  in  feeling  and  in 
motor  reactions,  165-166;  "mean- 
ing in  itself,"  166;  bod^  of,  may 
lie  in  bodily  attitudes,  etc.,  167- 
168;  Professor  Titchener's  discus- 
sion of,  182;  of  concepts,  182-183; 
of  picture  characters,  199  ff.; 
learner  should  be  concerned  with 
total,  348  ff.;  rate  of  getting,  359; 
grasped  better  when  we  read  in 
large  units,  360-361 ;  appreciations 
of,  may  require  acts  of  the  atten- 
tion, 400;  meaningful  complexes 
apperceived  preferably,  84. 

Mechanical  reading,  developed  by  un- 
natural subject-matter  of  primers, 
279  ff.,  319;  causes  of,  302. 

Mediterranean  peoples  alone  at- 
tained to  a  true  alphabet,  221. 

Melancthon,  Philip,  first  Protestant 
primer  made  by,  243. 

Melody  of  speech  appears  in  inner 
speech,  140. 

Memory,  apperceptive  activity  in 
relation  to  memory  image,  105; 
phrases  and  sentences  existing  as 
memory-wholes,  142;  primary,  of 
inner  speech,  148;  of  rapid  readers 
is  more  exact,  173;  affective  type 
of,  183;  good  among  primitive 
peoples,  200;  strengthened  by 
substituting  oral  work  for  book 
methods,  310;  memorizing  of 
poems,  stories,  songs,  etc.,  to  be 
used  in  learning  to  read,  332-333. 

Mental  discipline  from  reading, 
427-428. 

Merry,  Robert,  326. 

Messmer,  Oskar,  61,  90  ff.,  99,  109, 
121,  182,  422-423. 

Metaphor  in  pictures,  195  ff. 

Methods,  no  rationalization  of,  9; 
review  of,  needed,  9;  of  learning 
to  read  determine  individual  differ- 
ences in  perceiving,  116;  history 


INDEX 


459 


of  alphabet  method,  240  ff.;  of 
learning  to  read  began  with  rise 
of  syllabaries  and  alphabets,  240; 
and  texts  in  elementary  reading, 
Chap.  XIV;  classification  of, 
265;  use  of  blackboard  in  sen- 
tence method,  273;  directions 
of  attention  in  the  various,  273; 
adult,  used  in  teaching  to  read, 
281 ;  in  Chicago  schools,  339,  371. 

Metonymy,  used  in  pictures,  195. 

Mexican  writing,  205  ff. 

Microphone  experiment,  19. 

Middle  Ages,  reading  in  the,  237. 

Minuscule  letters  chosen  for  Anglo- 
Saxon  readers,  224. 

Mirror  observation  of  eye-move- 
ments, 15,  20. 

Monogrammatic  linking  of  final 
letters,  233. 

Moon  pictured,    198. 

Moral  purpose  of  adolescent  reading, 

375- 

Morning  pictured,  197. 
Morning  sessions  should  be  shorter, 

394- 

Mosso,  Professor  A.,  304. 

Mother  Goose,  299,  334,  372. 

Motion,  representation  of,  in  read- 
ing, 157- 

Motive  in  reading,  299,  305. 

Motor  elements,  and  auditory  ele- 
ments more  stably  knitted  together 
than  visual  elements,  144;  exceed 
the  visual  in  reading,  154  ff. 

Motor  habits  in  reading,  44,  176  ff. 

Motor  training  should  dominate 
primary  school,  398. 

Motorizing,  experiments  which  re- 
vealed, 119-122;  of  words  in 
isolation,  146. 

Munsterberg,  Hugo,  79. 

Murray's  Readers,  251. 

Muscat  volitantes,  show  character 
of  eye-movements,  23. 

Mycenae's  relations  with  Egypt  and 
Assyria,  218. 

Myopia,  19,  390;  astigmatism  may 
lead  to,  382,  383;  caused  by 
reading  and  other  near  work  of 


the  school,  390  ff. ;  blind  persons 
may  become  progressively  myopic, 
391;  incurable,  392;  progressive,  in 
youth,  392. 

Mystery  of  reading,  2. 

Myth,  the  mother  of  poetry,  religion, 
and  art,  377. 

Myths,  give  the  essential,  195;  and 
folk  tales  for  children's  reading, 
334-335,  372  ff.J  of  North  and 
South  compared,  376-377;  inter- 
pretation of,  shows  progress  of 
culture,  378. 

N 

N,  origin  of  letter,  213,  220. 

Names,  proper,  written  in  rebuses 
by  Aztecs,  205;  child's  learning 
of,  314  ff. ;  learned  from  pictures, 
315.  See  Words. 

National  Educational  Association 
Report,  268. 

National  Readers,  252. 

Nature  Study  in  primary  school,  336. 

Neapolitans  proficient  in  gesture- 
language,  189. 

Near  work,  troubles  of  vision  caused 
by,  388  ff. 

Nerve  exhaustion,  and  painful  vision, 
399;  in  persons  who  read  actively, 
403. 

Nervous  system  disturbed  at  second 
dentition,  396  ff. 

Neural  functionings  in  reading,  151. 

New  England  Primer,  244  ff. 

Newspaper,  number  of  pauses  per 
line  in  reading  an  article  in,  30; 
has  felt  reaction  of  readers,  410- 
411;  line-length  in,  near  the  pres- 
ent optimum,  411;  characteriza- 
tion of  important  words  and  phrases 
by,  423. 

Nibelungen  mythology  as  basis  for 
adolescent  literature,  376  ff. 

Nineveh  pictured,  199. 

Nonsense-matter,  reading  range  for, 

63-65- 

"Normal  Word  Method"  of  Ger- 
mans, 315. 


460 


INDEX 


Norms,  minimal,  for  printing,  408  ff. 

See  Type-size. 
Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  254. 
Novel,     read     experimentally,     118; 

rate  of  reading  selections  from  a, 

174- 
"Now   I   lay   me,"   prayer  in   New 

England  Primer,  244. 
Nystagmus,  53. 

O 

Objective  type  of  reader,  92. 
Object-lessons,    in    Keagy's    Primer, 

250;    in  "Orbis  Pictus,"  256. 
Objects  labeled  to  teach  names,  316  ff. 
Observation  should  precede  reading, 

362. 

Ojibwa  pictures,  197. 
"Old-Time     Schools     and      School 

Books,"  245,  246,  247,  256,  257. 
Oral  language  work,  preferable  from 

a    hygienic    point    of    view,    395. 

See  Speech,  etc. 
Oral  methods  in  the  primary  school, 

336  £f. 
Oral  reading,  overemphasized,  302; 

an  accomplishment,  342.  See  Read- 
ing aloud. 
Oral  teaching  best  for  young  children, 

308  ff.,  334. 
"Orbis  Pictus"  started  word-method, 

25°,. *57- 
Organic    sensations    as    determining 

types  of  individuals,   183. 
Organism  taxed  severely  in  reading, 

387- 

Orient,  reading  in  the,  240,  274. 
Ostracize,    the    word,    suggests    the 

poverty  of  writing  materials,  239. 
Over-reading,  dangers  of,  362. 


Pace,  of  judging,  as  affected  by  clas- 
sical study,  365;  in  reading,  404- 
405.  See  Rate  of  reading. 

Page,  changes  proposed,  1 1 ;  evolu- 
tion of  printed,  Chap.  XII;  im- 
provement of,  means  a  great  ser- 


vice to  human  race,  421;  not 
rationalized,  421;  history  of  writ- 
ing has  suggestions  for  improving, 
424;  improvements  of,  suggested 
by  advertisements,  427;  possi- 
bilities of  improving  and  beautify- 
ing, 427. 

Pantomimic  language,   190. 

Paper,  absence  of,  among  Greeks 
and  Romans,  238;  early  known 
to  Chinese,  234;  different  from 
papyrus,  234;  brought  to  Europe 
by  Arabs,  235;  requirements  as 
to,  for  printing,  414. 

Papyrus,  238;  and  vellum  used  in 
books,  234  ff. 

Paragraph-divisions,  development  of, 

233- 

Paraphrasing,   147-148. 

Parents,  instruction  of,  by  the  schools, 
312. 

Parker,  Francis  W.,  302,  342,  371; 
Francis  W.  Parker  School,  279  ff. 

Pater,  Walter,  378. 

Paternoster,  Aztec  rebus  for,  206. 

Patrick,  G.  T.  W.,  306  ff.,  307. 

Pauses.  See  Eye-pauses  and  Fixa- 
tion. 

Pedagogical  conclusions  summarized, 

379  ff- 

Perception,  of  total  form,  74-75, 
114-116;  as  facilitated  by  inter- 
relation of  units  perceived,  75-79; 
of  general  forms,  77;  theory  of, 
by  dominant  complexes,  85-89; 
not  simultaneous,  88-90;  of  total 
form  by  subjective  type  of  readers, 
92;  of  details  by  objective  readers, 
92;  simultaneous  and  successive, 
92-93;  by  dominant  letters,  92-96; 
general  features  of,  104  ff. ; 
of  word  length,  total  form,  domi- 
nant parts,  etc.,  109-116;  of  a 
letter,  112-113;  by  letters,  m- 
116;  sketchiness  of,  194;  ad- 
vantages of,  in  large  units,  423. 

Peripheral  parts  of  retinal  image,  67. 

Personification,  in  Pollard  method, 
283;  of  letter-sounds,  287. 

Pessimism  concerning  bad  effects  of 


INDEX 


461 


reading    not    warranted    if    final 

outcome  is  regarded,  396. 
Philanthropinists,    use    of    alphabet 

method  by,  255. 
Philological    Association,    American, 

355- 

Philologists,  commend  Scientific  Al- 
phabet, 355;  point  of  view  of, 
needed  in  studying  the  problems 
of  reading,  430. 

Phoenicians,  supposed  to  have  adopted 
Egyptian  alphabet,  217  ff. ;  con- 
tribution of,  to  our  alphabet,  219. 

Phonetic  method  in  Funk  and  Wag- 
nails'  Readers,  288. 

Phonetics  may  result  in  word  read- 
ing, 294. 

Phonetic  spelling,  a  goal  that  will 
be  reached  sooner  or  later,  356- 
357;  systems  of,  too  often  con- 
structed from  a  single  point  of 
view,  430. 

Phonetic  system,  reached  by  Chinese, 
202;  attained  by  nations  about 
the  Mediterranean,  202;  signs 
and  ideographic  keys  required  in 
Chinese,  209;  of  Jansenists,  258; 
in  the  Horace  Mann  School,  294- 
296. 

Phonetic  systems  need  revision  from 
psychological  and  pedagogical  view- 
points, 358. 

Phonetic  writing  of  early  peoples 
tended  to  start  the  alphabet  method, 
240. 

Phonics,  always  involved  in  alphabet 
methods,  266;  taught  with  reading 
in  the  primers,  280;  as  taught  in 
Pollard  method,  281;  kept  apart 
from  reading,  284,  299;  in  the 
Gordon  method,  287;  tends  to 
mechanical  reading,  302;  primer- 
directions  about,  should  ordinarily 
be  ignored,  325;  should  be  taught 
in  due  time,  334;  has  double  pur- 
pose, 351;  is  dangerous  in  early 
years,  352;  method  of  teaching, 
354  «. 

Phonic  method,  described,  260; 
developed  to  phonetic  method, 


260;  as  training  articulation,  266; 
used  by  Jansenists  in  Port  Royal 
Schools,  266. 

Phonograms,  development  of,  204  ff . ; 
of  Ward  method,  284  ff. 

Photographic  measurements  of  rate, 
22,  34,  43- 

Phrases,  perception  of,  114-116. 

Phrasing,  differences  in,  181. 

Physicians  read  effectively,  366. 

Physiological  objections  to  early 
reading,  304-305. 

Pictographs,  used  in  learning  to  read, 
328;  became  ideographs,  195;  un- 
realized possibilities  of,  201. 

Pictorial  origin  of  Egyptian  letters, 
216. 

Picture  atlas,  315;  picture-books 
forbidden  in  school,  426. 

Picture  dictionaries,  328. 

Picture-languages,  advantages  of, 
over  phonetic  languages,  201. 

Picture  letter,  of  a  Mandan  Indian, 
226;  of  Chip"peway  Indians,  227. 

Picture  letters  in  teaming  to  read, 
326. 

Picture  reading,  direction  of  atten- 
tion in,  226. 

Picture  readings,  326-327. 

Pictures,  reading  and  writing  began 
with,  1 88;  materials  used  in 
making,  192  ff. ;  contained  the 
germs  of  alphabets,  192;  repre- 
senting abstract  ideas,  196;  tended 
to  become  symbols,  196,  198  ff. ; 
came  to  represent  names,  204; 
sounds  represented  by,  204;  origin 
of  letters  in,  220;  use  of,  in  the 
"Orbis  Pictus,"  256  ff. ;  arrange- 
ment of,  in  pictography,  266  ff. ; 
reading  of,  288-289;  used  to  teach 
words  and  sentences,  319  ff.; 
illustrative,  call  attention  to  sen- 
tence-meanings, 323-324;  of  sen- 
tences and  stories,  324-325;  use 
of,  in  learning  to  read,  333. 

Picture  stories,  children's,  228, 

Picture  writing,  much  the  same  foi 
all  primitive  peoples  and  for  all 
children,  191;  very  ancient,  191- 


462 


INDEX 


192;  of  early  Greeks,  218;  and 
perceiving,  227;  read  by  all,  236, 
322  ff. 

Pierpont's  Readers,  250. 

Play  as  means  of  learning  to  read, 
313  ff.,  241. 

Plus  distance  between  seat  and  desk 
causes  eye-strain,  394.  i 

Poems,  reading  of,  by  school  chil- 
dren, 292;  memorization  of,  296; 
poems  and  stories  for  children,  335. 

Pointing  results  in  word-reading,  292. 

Pollard,  Rebecca  S.,  281  ff. 

Practice  and  rate  of  reading,  174,  179. 

Preposition,  often  attached  to  related 
word,  233. 

Presentative  states  other  than  images, 
161. 

Preyer,  W.,  123. 

Priests  came  to  be  the  readers,  236. 

Primary  reading,  dissatisfaction  with, 
301. 

Primers,  should  usually  be  avoided, 
319;  contents  of  early,  242;  were 
religious  books  at  first,  242-243; 
New  England  Primer  described, 
244  ff . ;  battledore  paddles  as,  247 ; 
contents  of  early  American,  249; 
and  Readers  emphasize  artistic 
side,  276  S.;  natural  language  of 
children  not  used  in,  278,  279, 

3°5. 

Primitive  life,  reading  lessons  based 
on,  290  ff. 

Primitive  man,  proficiency  of,  in 
use  of  gestures,  189;  mind  of, 
works  similarly  in  all  times  and 
places,  191. 

Primitive  readers,  acuteness  of,  201. 

Print,  Leigh's,  261;  used  before 
script  at  the  Horace  Mann  School, 
292;  disjointedness  of,  gives  a 
hobble  to  reading,  360;  must 
not  show  on  reverse  side  of  paper, 
414. 

"Print,   Alphabetical   Reform,"    271. 

Printers,  the  first,  selected  types  from 
handwritings  that  pleased  them, 
224;  are  inconvenienced  by  very 
short  lines,  411. 


Printing,  separates  parts  which  belong 
together  in  speech,  115;  stereo- 
typed handwritings,  235;  inven- 
tion of,  increased  habit  of  reading, 
239,  297;  came  soon  after  intro- 
duction of  paper,  239;  future  of, 
Chap.  XXII;  committees  of 
specialists  should  determine  ideals 
for,  430-431. 

Printing  of  reading  lessons,  by  chil- 
dren themselves,  298;  large  char- 
acters, at  first,  316. 

Printing-press,  habit  of  reading  pro- 
duced by,  7. 

Prior,  Matthew,  241. 

Problems,  specific,  should  be  studied, 

43°- 
Professors  of  English  too  analytical, 

367- 

Projection  in  perceiving,  105-106. 

Promptness,  taught  in  Ward  method, 
284  ff . ;  in  judging,  may  be  trained 
by  reading,  363-364. 

Pronunciation,  as  taught  by  Shearer 
system,  270-271;  of  words,  the 
goal  of  most  primers,  280  ff.;  how 
learned,  351. 

Proof-reading,  21. 

Prose,  printed  as  poetry,  137;  mod- 
ern, compared  with  modern  speech, 
428-429. 

Proto-Medic  tribes  reduced  the  As- 
syrian cuneiform  to  a  syllabary,  212. 

Psychic  economies  and  pace  of  read- 
ing, 404-405. 

Psychologist's  point  of  view  must 
be  synthesized  with  those  of  philol- 
ogist and  educator,  430. 

Psychology  and  pedagogy  of  picture- 
printing,  426. 

Psycho-educational  departments,  im- 
portant problems  for,  358. 

Publishers,  as  influencing  methods, 
9;  courtesies  of,  276;  forced  by 
competition  to  develop  artistic 
side  of  Readers,  276;  will  print 
hygienically  if  schools  require  it, 
418. 

Punctuation  marks,  development  of, 
233. 


INDEX 


463 


Puritans'  Catechism  succeeded  by 
New  England  Primer,  243. 

Putnam's  Readers,  definitions  of 
words  introduced  by,  250. 


Quantz,  Dr.  J.  O.,  54,  121,  145    ff., 

172-174. 
Quintilian,  24,  376. 


R's,  the  three,  percentage  of  time 
given  to,  in  different  grades,  307. 

Race  degeneration  from  reading 
habit,  8. 

Radical  empiricism,   James',    106   n. 

Rapidity  of  thought  in  reading  causes 
fatigue,  403. 

Rapid  reading,  advantages  of,  170  ff., 
360 ;  accompanied  by  longer  initial 
pauses,  178;  from  the  first,  350. 
See  Rate  of  reading. 

Rate  of  eye-movement.  See  Eye- 
movements. 

Rate  of  reading,  Chap.  IX;  ignored 
in  teaching,  10,  33,  43,  49;  slow, 
for  unrelated  forms,  73 ;  by  various 
assigned  methods,  119-121;  cor- 
related with  eye-voice  separation, 
146;  how  increased,  172-179; 
conditioned  by  power  of  concentra- 
ting attention,  174;  as  dependent 
on  habits  of  eye- movement,  176, 
177;  natural  rate  of  children, 
350-351;  importance  of  rapid 
rate,  359;  speed  drills  advised,  381. 

Rationalization  of  letter-forms  has 
been  slight,  225. 

"Rational  Method"  of  teaching 
reading,  284  ff. 

Readers,  first  grading  of,  250;  articu- 
lation and  elocution  taught  in 
early,  252;  used  in  Horace  Mann 
School,  295,  296;  composed  by 
children,  339  ff. ;  value  of  the  old, 
373;  formal,  may  not  be  neces- 
sary, 373-374;  "Das  Deutsche 
Lesebuch,"  378. 

Reading,  derivation  of  word,  i; 
age  of,  i,  2;  long  controlled  by 


priesthood,  3;  as  identical  with 
education,  3;  habit  of,  7-9;  in 
larger  units,  72;  wandering  of 
attention  in,  148-150;  simulta- 
neous or  successive,  150  ff. ;  rate 
of,  1 80;  abnormalities  of,  182; 
amount  of,  at  various  times  in 
world's  history,  236;  difficulty 
of,  in  early  systems  of  writing,  236; 
in  modern  sense  came  with  devel- 
opment of  syllabaries  and  alphabets, 
240;  and  pronouncing,  confused 
in  primers,  280;  lesson  in,  about 
visit  to  farm,  298;  not  an  end  in 
itself,  300;  mechanics  of,  and  of 
spelling,  consume  too  much  time, 
301;  should  be  secondary  until 
at  least  the  eighth  year,  303 ;  place 
in  curriculum,  was  acquired  in  a 
different  age,  304;  time  wasted 
in  teaching,  too  early,  309;  may 
be  learned  incidentally,  334;  by 
acting,  343;  reading  directions 
for  occupation-work,  etc.,  344; 
learning  to  read  without  technique 
of  method,  345;  as  translation, 
349-,  as  thought-getting  rather 
than  thought -expressing,  350;  as 
mental  discipline,  361-364,  Chap. 
XVIII;  may  habituate  to  inaction 
and  indecision,  362;  by  ear,  370; 
craze  for,  in  adolescents,  375; 
is  always  neuraUy  expensive,  404; 
not  rationalized,  421;  possible 
displacement  of,  by  other  means 
of  communicating,  429;  future  of, 
Chap.  XXII. 

Reading  and  writing,  are  very  old, 
187;  development  of,  much  the 
same  in  all  countries,  188. 

Reading  aloud,  characteristics  of, 
120-121;  means  by  which  proper 
emphasis  is  given,  130-131;  rate 
of,  173,  175;  determines  rate  ot 
reading,  179;  to  children,  331-332; 
at  home,  334;  need  not  be  ir 
exact  words  of  book,  342,  349; 
is  natural  in  the  early  years,  349; 
at  the  expense  of  reading  fot 
thought,  359. 


464 


INDEX 


Reading  machines,  275,  283. 

Reading  matter,  for  children,  334- 
335;  should  be  of  two  classes, 
371;  the  real  and  the  unreal  in 
children's  readings,  372  ff. 

Reading- pauses,  habit  of  making 
fixed  number  of,  per  line,  176  ff. 
See  Eye-pauses. 

Reading  range,  measured,  55,  Chap. 
Ill;  varies  with  matter  exposed, 
58,  65;  to  right  and  left,  58-61; 
conditions  determining,  68-70 ; 
increased  in  vertical  reading,  426. 
See  Field  of  clear  vision. 

Rebus-writing,  as  transition  stage 
from  picture-writing  to  word- 
writing,  204,  205;  use  of,  in  learn- 
ing to  read,  326. 

Recapitulation,  theory  of,  in  relation 
to  the  primary  school  course,  308, 
309;  in  learning  to  read,  326;  re- 
capitulation interest  in  pictography, 
338-339;  in  reading,  372  ff. 

Recognition  as  a  physiological  pro- 
cess, 183. 

Recognitions,  possible  number  of, 
during  a  reading-pause,  69-70. 

Reeder,  R.  R.,  Chap.  XIII. 

Reference  books,  small  type  found  in, 

417- 

Reforms  can  be  hastened  under 
modern  conditions,  431. 

Reindeer  Period,  drawings  from,  192. 

Relation,  feelings  of,  163  ff. 

Relational  words,  suggest  few  asso- 
ciations, 154  ff. 

Renan,  Ernst,  240. 

Research,  departments  for,  should 
carry  out  studies  upon  legibility, 
414;  needed  to  determine  ideals 
for  reading  and  printing,  430. 

Rest,  periods  of,  393-394;  rest- 
periods  needed  in  reading,  405; 
how  to  rest  the  eyes  while  travel- 
ing, 389-390. 

Retina,  sensitive  during  eye-move- 
ment, 39;  peripheral  discrimina- 
tion of  brightness,  5 1 ;  detach- 
ment of,  in  myopia,  392. 

Retinal  fatigue,  387-388. 


Retinal  image,  characteristics  of, 
65-68;  retouched  by  apperception, 
67-68. 

Retinal  periphery  more  available 
in  vertical  reading,  426. 

Retracal  movements  of  eye  in  read- 
ing, 27. 

Retracal  pauses,  32. 

Return  movements  in  reading,  27, 
29,  44.  See  Eye-movements. 

Reverence,  for  reading  and  readers, 
2-3;  the  premature,  for  books, 
302;  for  written  words,  415. 

Rhetoric,  was  oratory  in  Greece,  369. 

Rhymes  for  children,  372. 

Rhythm,  as  factor  in  determining 
rate  of  reading,  46,  177,  179;  of 
inner  speech,  140-141;  as  factor  in 
recall,  153;  in  reading,  175. 

Rhythmic  succession  in  perception, 
88-89. 

"  Rhythmizing,"  of  word  by  its  long 
letters,  94;  of  words  by  dominant 
letters,  96. 

Ribot,  Professor,  159,  189. 

Rock  drawings,  193  ff. 

Romanes,  G.  J.,  170-171. 

Romans,  word  for  reading  in  lan- 
guage of,  i;  capital  letters  of,  222; 
cursive  script  of,  223;  uncial  letters 
of,  224. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  362. 

Russell,  Principal,  181. 


Sack,  Dr.  N.,  407  ff. 
Samplers  as  primers,  247. 
Sanford,  Edmund  C.,  413. 
Sanskrit,    fine    analysis    of    sounds 

in,   221. 

Santa  Rosa,  Cal.,  schools,  339  ff. 
School,   learning   to  read   at,    Chap. 

XVII. 
School  activities  of  young  children, 

306-308  ff. 
School-books,    hygienic    printing    of, 

should     be    enforced,     406,     409; 

often     badly     printed,      417-418; 

"Orbis  Pictus"  the  first  of  illus- 
trated, 256. 


INDEX 


465 


Schools,  elementary,  curriculum  of, 
310  ff.;  the  nurseries  of  stuttering, 

352.  397- 

Schulte's  primer,   243. 
Schumann,  Dr.  F.,  151. 
"Scientific  alphabet,"  illustrated  and 

described,    268-269;     as    used    in 

Funk     and     Wagnalls'     Readers, 

288,  355  ff. 
"Scrappy"    Readers    denounced    by 

Horace  Mann  and  President  Eliot, 

253- 

Script,  used  at  first  in  Ward  method, 
286;  transition  to  print  is  easy, 
317;  and  blackboard,  preferred 
by  American  teachers,  276. 

Scripture,  Edward  W.,  133  ff. 

Scripture,  Mrs.  E.  W.,  316  ff. 

Scudder,  Horace,  248,  334. 

Search,  Professor,  337. 

Secor,  117. 

Secret  languages  of  children,  328. 

Selective  reading,  360,  423,  427; 
fatiguing  at  first,  but  becomes 
automatic,  404,  405. 

Semites,  supposed  to  have  borrowed 
Egyptian  alphabet,  217;  wrote 
from  right  to  left  like  modern 
Hebrew,  231. 

Semitic  alphabet  mainly  consonantal, 
221. 

Sentence,  is  the  unit  in  language,  123 
ff.,  273;  not  a  mere  sequence  of 
word-sounds  and  word-names,  125, 
273;  formation  of,  analytical  but 
also  synthetic,  127-128;  a  "vol- 
untary act,"  128;  physical  utter- 
ance of,  133  ff.;  welded  together  by 
unity  of  its  physical  utterance, 
139;  unitized  by  variations  in 
stress,  pitch,  rhythm,  melody,  140; 
written  in  rebuses,  207-208;  anal- 
ysis of,  in  sentence  method, 
274;  learning  to  recognize  sen- 
tences, 318. 

Sentence  divisions,   development  of, 

233- 

"Sentence  hash"  in  primers,  280. 

Sentence  method,  293,  298  ff. ;  sug- 
gested by  Comenius,  popularized 

a  H 


by  Farnham,  272-273;  with  the 
use  of  the  blackboard,  273  ff.; 
usually  contrasted  with  phonic 
method,  274;  begins  with  mean- 
ing-wholes, 274.  See  Method. 

Sentence-reading  is  more  than  word- 
reading,  317  ff. 

Sentence  utterance,  simultaneity  and 
succession  in  consciousness  of, 
128;  cues  to,  142  ff. 

Sentence  words,  123-124. 

Serial  writing,  development  of,  228  ff. 

"Set"  in  perceiving,  108,  113;  in 
reading,  155  ff. 

Shaw's  requirements  as  to  type  for 
children's  books,  416-417. 

Shearer,  J.  W.,  270  ff.,  357. 

Shells  as  material  for  writing,   439. 

Sherman,  L.  A.,  428-429. 

Shifting  eye-movements,  46. 

Sight-words  of  Ward  method,  284  ff. 

Signs,  indicative  of  distance,  position, 
size,  etc.,  107-108. 

Silent  letters,  retention  of,  resembles 
Egyptian  failure  to  rationalize 
writing,  217;  in  Leigh's  system, 
268 ;  as  marked  in  Shearer  system, 

357- 

Silent  reading,  ignored  in  teaching, 
10,  359;  simpler  and  faster  than 
reading  aloud,  120-121;  in  second 
year's  course,  296;  importance  of, 
342  ff. ;  in  games  and  plays, 
344- 

Simultaneous  action  of  cues  to  per- 
ception, no- 1 1 6. 

•Singing  pictured,  198. 

Skimming,  facilitation  of,  by  short 
lines,  411,  423. 

Sky  pictured,  199. 

Slates,  writing  upon,  less  legible  than 
upon  paper,  415. 

Slow  reading  injurious,  350. 

Smith,  E.  Louise,  341. 

Smith,  Jessie  R.,  278,  339. 

Snow  pictured,   197. 

Song  pictured,  199. 

Songs,  singing  of,  in  learning  to 
read,  333,  355. 

Sound,  as  drawn,  194;    and  speech 


466 


INDEX 


pictured,  197-198;  analysis  of 
initial,  by  aerology,  206. 

Sound-blending,  taught  in  phonic 
method,  266. 

Sounds,  selection  of  signs  to  repre- 
sent, 203 ;  pictured  in  rebus,  205  ff. ; 
blending  of  letter  sounds,  284  ff.; 
of  letters  should  not  be  attended 
to  in  reading,  350-351. 

Spacing,  development  of,  between 
words,  232;  of  letters  and  words, 
407  ff. 

Spears  and  Augsburg's  "Preparing 
to  Read,"  319. 

Specialists,  committees  of,  should 
determine  norms  for  printing,  413. 

Speech,  mechanism  of,  133  ff. ; 
not  broken  into  letters,  syllables, 
and  words,  134  ff.;  rhythm  and 
melody  of,  137  ff. ;  habits  of, 
more  deeply  founded  than 
visual  language  habits,  143  ff. ; 
psycho-physics  of,  needed  in  peda- 
gogy, 141;  not  inherited,  330; 
consciousness  of,  causes  stuttering, 
352;  disturbance  at  second  den- 
tition, 352;  analysis  of,  353;  organs 
affected  in  stuttering,  397;  dis- 
turbances from  reading  aloud, 
396  ff. ;  analysis  of,  must  not 
come  too  early,  398-399.  See 
Inner  Speech,  Language,  etc. 

"Speller,  Combination,"  Shearer's, 
270. 

Spellers,  displacement  of,  by  First 
Readers  as  introductory  to  read- 
ing, 252. 

Spelling,  an  old  lesson  in,  249;  pre- 
ceded pronunciation  in  alphabet 
method,  255;  opposed  by  Come- 
nius,  258;  taught  by  alphabet 
method,  266;  irrational,  wastes 
time,  301  ff.;  psychology  of,  356; 
habits  of,  confused  by  reform 
agitation,  356-357;  in  Egyptian 
characters,  422. 

Spelling  Board,  Simplified,  302. 

Spelling   Reform,   301,    355-357. 

Spelling  Reform  Association,  Ameri- 
can, 355. 


Spider  story,  reading  of,  152  ff. 
Spoken  language  the  real  language 

122.     See  Speech. 

Sprach   Umfang,   extent  of,   as  con- 
ditioned   by     association     habits, 

144. 

Standard  Dictionary,   268,   270. 
Standard  methods,   265. 
Standardizing     of    college    entrance 

requirements,  375  ff. 
Starving  hunter,  record  of  a,  drawn 

by  an  Indian,  192. 
Stewart,  Dugald,  189. 
Stone  Age,  drawings  from,  192. 
Stories,  reading  of  true,  373. 
Story  interests  of  children,  296. 
Stout,  G.  F.,  116,  160  ff. 
Strabismus    caused    by    near    work 

of  reading,  393. 
Stress,  alternations  of,  as  factors  in 

unitizing  sentence,  140. 
Students,  inability  of,  to    use  books 

effectively,    306;     unable   to   read 

selectively,  364. 
Study,   bad  mental  habits  acquired 

by    too    early    attempts    at,    309- 

310. 

Stutterers,  census  of,  396. 
Stuttering    among    Boston    children, 

352;    treatment  of,  398. 
Style,  need  of  studying  the  psychology 

of,  429. 

Subjective  type  of  reader,  92. 
Subject-matter   as   conditioning  rate 

of  reading,  177. 
Suffixes,    preponderance    of,    makes 

beginning   of   words   more   impor- 
tant, 98. 
Summers,     Maud,    "The    Thought 

Reader"  by,  324,343. 
Sun  pictured,  198. 
Supplementary  Readers,  first  appear- 
ance   of,  253;    in  Ward  method, 

286. 
Survey  of  line  taken  at  the  initial 

pause,  412. 
Sweet,  Henry,  136  ff. 
Syllabary,    of    Cypriote    or    Cyprus, 

similar  to  Cretan,  219. 
Syllable  analysis,  by  aerology,  206; 


2SDEX 


467 


•sane    with    difficulty,    307,    214; 
by  Egyptians,  213-214. 
-vllable   division,    determination    of, 

138- 

Syllables,  number  of,  that  can  be 
uttered  during  singly  exhalations, 
136;  differentiate^-by  variations 
in  stress,  137;  represented  by 
pictures,  204  S. ;  analysis  of  words 
into,  by  Aztecs,  210. 

synthetic  method  of  reading  and 
spelling,  281  ff. 

Systems  of  teaching  to  read,  281  ff. 


Tablets,    wooden,    the    first    books, 

234- 
Talk,  learning  to  read  like  learning 

to,    297;     devices    and    technique 

not  used  in  learning  to,  330.     See^ 

Speech,   etc. 

Tappan,  Eva  March,  379. 
Tattooing,  194. 
Taylor,  F.  Lilian,  322  ff.,  333,  344- 

345,  346. 

Taylor,  I.,  204  ff.,  208,  232. 
Teachers,  the  over-strenuous,  350. 
Technique,  of  learning  to  read,  275, 

285,  300. 
Telegraph     reading     by     ear,    370, 

429. 

Telescope  observations  of  eye-move- 
ments, 21. 
Texts    and    manuals    in    elementary 

reading,  Chaps.  XIII-XIV. 
Thickness,    of    letters,    407    ff.;     of 

paper,  414. 

Thompson,  232-234  ff. 
Thornton,  Dr.,  266;  phonetic  system 

of,   259. 
Thoroughness    misunderstood,    367- 

368. 
Thought,  of  what  is  read,  means  of 

interesting   in,    292;    reading   for, 

302.    See  Consciousness,  Meaning, 

etc. 
Time,  waste  of,  in  learning  to  read, 

301. 
Titchener,  Professor,  182-184. 


Tomb-board  of  Indian  chief,  193. 

Tone-variations,  use  of,  in  Chinese 
language,  208. 

Total  idea,  as  guide  to  sentence 
utterance,  and  as  expressed  in 
parts  of  speech,  124  ff.;  total 
ideas  require  acts  of  the  attention, 
400.  See  Sentence. 

Tradition  maintains  reading  as  main 
study  of  primary  school,  303-304. 

Train,  fatigue  from  reading  on,  389- 

390- 

Transitive  places  in  consciousness, 
129. 

Translation,  reading  as,  into  speech, 
123.' 

Translation  English,  at  adolescence, 
368.  . 

Traveling,  pictured,  197;  eye-move- 
ments in,  389. 

Tylor,  E.  B.,  189  ff. 

Types  of  perception  in  reading,  92. 
See  Individual  differences. 

Type-size,  as  affecting  number  of 
eye-movements  and  eye-pauses  in 
reading,  29-30;  the  most  impor- 
tant factor  in  legibility,  406  ff. 
See  Legibility,  etc. 

Typography,  history  of,  should  be 
consulted  before  changing  letter- 
forms,  413. 


U 


Uncial  letters  of  Romans,  323-224. 
Uniformity  of  line-length  urged,  412. 


Verbal  associations  in  reading,  155  ff. 

Verbal  fringe  of  consciousness,  183. 

Verbal  fringe  type,  183. 

Vertical  reading,  without  lateral 
movement  of  eyes,  410;  experi- 
ments upon,  425;  of  Chinese  and 
Japanese,  425;  advantages  of, 
425-426. 

Vision,  during  eye-movement,  36-43; 
46.  See  Perception,  etc. 


INDEX 


Visual  field,  size  of,  37.  See  Read- 
ing range,  etc. 

Visual  form,  characteristic  feeling 
aroused  by,  168. 

Visualization,  static,  in  reading,  157. 

Visual  perception,  quickness  of, 
a  condition  of  rapid  reading,  174. 

Visual  reading,    10,   117,    180-181. 

Visual  types  and  auditory  types 
differ  in  rate  of  reading,  173. 

Vocal  organs  studied  in  learning 
to  read,  283.  See  Speech. 

"  Volker-Psychologie,"  Wundt's,  quo- 
tation from,  125-126. 

Vowels,  give  the  clew  to  the  number 
of  syllables,  80;  awaken  memory 
of  rhythm  and  accent,  80;  mis- 
read oftenest,  83;  vary  constantly 
in  pitch,  135;  how  produced,  137; 
assist  in  syllable  division,  137; 
writing  of,  in  Semitic,  222.  See 
Letters,  Speech,  etc. 

Vowel  sounds,  that  are  of  determin- 
ing significance,  81;  analysis  of 
words  to,  easier  than  to  conso- 
nants, 214. 

W 

Wallin,  Dr.  J.  E.  W.,  133  ff. 

Ward,  E.  G.,  284  ff.,  350. 

Ward  Reader  quotation,  285. 

Warning  pictured,   195. 

Washington,  story  of,  340. 

Waste,  elimination  of,  Chap.  XXII; 
elimination  of,  by  changing  the 
rate  of  reading,  180;  wastes  from 
failure  to  rationalize  reading  and 
writing,  among  ancient  peoples, 
427;  in  modern  times,  427  ff.; 
elimination  of,  from  improve- 
ments in  style,  428-429. 

Waterloo,  Stanley,  290. 

Webb's  Normal  Readers,  259. 

Webster's  Reader,  249. 

Webster's  Spelling  Book,  enormous 
sales  of,  248;  contents  of,  248. 

Werner  Primer,  323  ff.,  344. 

Whately,  Dr.  Richard,  238. 

Wheaton,  Margaret,  342. 


Whispering,  all  consonants  can  be 
whispered,  138. 

Whitney,  W.  D.,  122. 

Williams,  Sherman,  345. 

Willson's  Readers  used  science  as 
subject-matter,  253. 

Winthrop,   Dr.,  366. 

Woodworth,  R.  S.,  38,  41. 

Woolen  garments  worn  by  Greeks 
and  Romans,  238-239. 

Worcester  Mass.,  State  Normal 
School,  reading  at,  181. 

Worcester's  Primer  advocated  word 
method,  258. 

Worcester's  Readers,  250. 

Word- analysis,  helped  by  principle 
of  aerology,  215  ff. 

Word  as  continuum  of  sounds,  134  ff. 

Word-division,  determination  of,  138. 

Word-reading  theory,  72. 

Words,  reading  range  for,  64;  recog- 
nition and  naming  times  for,  and 
for  letters,  72;  recognized  far 
from  fixation-point,  73—74;  domi- 
nant, in  perception  of  sentences, 
84-85;  form  of,  92-96,  423-424; 
height  of,  measured  by  the  small 
letters,  94;  length  of,  a  minor 
factor  in  perception  of  chil- 
dren, 96;  root  of,  in  first  part 
of  word,  98;  upper  half  of,  more 
important,  98,  99;  recognized 
as  wholes,  100-101;  as  printed, 
written,  typewritten,  etc.,  1 10-1 1 1 ; 
as  products  of  analysis  of  sentence, 
125  ff. ;  sound  differently  alone,  139 ; 
subexcited  in  reading,  142  ff. ; 
read  when  letters  could  not  be 
recognized,  151;  visual  appearance 
of,  153-154;  connective  and  rela- 
tional, give  little  imagery,  154  ff. ; 
different  appearance  of,  when 
seen  in  isolation,  155;  meanings 
of,  158;  as  instruments  for 
fixing  attention  upon  meanings, 
162;  we  think  in,  163;  as  names 
of  feelings,  163-164;  meaning  of, 
felt  in  a  perspective  of  total  mean- 
ing, 1 66;  look  like  their  meaning, 
1 68;  sounds  necessary  to  express, 


INDEX 


469 


203-204;  analyzed  by  aerology, 
206;  words  of  like  sound  but 
unlike  meaning,  208 ;  not  separated 
by  spaces  in  early  writing,  232; 
division  of,  at  end  of  lines,  233; 
word-names  learned  as  quickly 
as  letter-names,  272;  word  not  a 
sum  of  letter-names,  letter-sounds, 
or  letter-shapes,  272;  pronunciation 
of,  well  taught  in  primers,  281; 
learning  to  pronounce  new  words, 
287 ;  learned  from  context  in  read- 
ing, 291,  299,  322  ff.,  326-327,  348; 
need  not  all  be  known  to  get  general 
meanings,  333-334;  may  be  learned 
with  help  of  diacritical  marks, 
351;  sub- arousal  of,  uses  energy 
in  reading,  402;  give  nicety  of 
control,  402;  word-thinking  is 
near  work  for  the  mind,  402; 
more  read  per  fixation  in  shorter 
lines,  410;  legibility  of,  increased 
by  adding  to  number  of  dominant 
letters,  423;  temporary  charac- 
terization of  the  important  words 
and  phrases,  423.  See  Speech,  etc. 

Word-method,  described,  272;  as 
used  in  the  "Orbis  Pictus,"  272; 
does  not  give  power  over  new 
words,  272. 

Word-sound,  81,  146,  164,  203,  207. 

Word-syllabary  of  Chinese,  210. 

Work-periods  should  be  compara- 
tively short,  393-394- 


Writing,  eye-movements  in,  21;  in 
Babylonia,  187;  systems  of,  de- 
velop similarly  among  all  peo- 
ples, 1 88;  as  communication  of 
sounds,  203;  of  Chaldea,  Baby- 
lonia, and  Assyria,  211;  arrange- 
ment of  characters  in,  231  ff.; 
compulsory  among  Chaldeans,  236; 
material  for,  not  plentiful  in  early 
times,  238;  too  slow  to  form  natu- 
ral habits  of  speech,  369 ;  as  affect- 
ing eye-fatigue,  394;  on  black- 
board should  be  in  large,  plain 
hand,  415.  See  Drawing,  Pic- 
tures, etc. 

Written  language,  fails  to  record 
vital  parts  of  speech,  140;  fails 
to  record  transitional  sounds,  140. 

Written  letters,  represent  but  a  por- 
tion of  sounds  uttered,  138. 

Written  words,  perception  of,  no— 
in. 

Wundt,  Wilhelm,  124-128,  163,  189, 
226  ff. 


Yellowish  paper  not    injurious,  414. 
Yucatan,  Mayas  of,  207. 


Zeitler,  64-65,  82-90,   108-109. 
Zodiac,  signs   of,  are   very  old,  213. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


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